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^ LIB llARY OF CONGRESS.* 

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l UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. | 



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;j D ii]i H F ID -s T E :r . 



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THE 



LIFE AND THOUGHTS 



OF 



JOHN FOSTER. 



OY 



W7''W/ E V E R T S, 

AUTHOR OF "pastor's HAM>-300K," "BIBLE MANUAL," ETC. 



NEW YORK: 4 
EDWARD H. FLETCHER, 

141 NASSAU STREET. 



1849. 













Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, 

By EDWARD H. FLETCHER, 

in the Clerk's Office of the Disti-ict Court of the United States, in and for 
the Southern Disti-ict of New York. 



STEREOTYPED BY C. C. SAVAGE, 
13 Chambers Street, N. Y. 



* *. ^ . V <*. A* • 



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PREFACE 



Oinnions respecting Foster. — Introducing Foster to the church 
at Frome, Robert Hall says : " His manner is not very popular, but 
his conceptions are most extraordinary and original ; his disposition 
very amiable, his piety i:nquestionablc, and his sentiments moder- 
ately orthodox — about the level of Watts and Doddridge." In 
another communication to the same church, he pronounces him a 
" young man of the most extraordinary genius." At a later period 
he said of Foster's vpritings, " They are like a great lumber-wagon 
loaded with gold." 

The eminent American reviewer of his "Life and Correspon- 
dence," ranking him with Hall, says: "Of the English minds that 
have departed from our world within a few years, none have ex- 
cited a deeper interest, or wielded for a season a loftier power, than 
John Foster and Robert Hall." And Harris, the distinguished 
author of " Prize Essays," reviewing the same work, says : " He 
will retain the reputation of gifts that have rarely fallen to the lot 
of mortals." 

Foster's life in cheap form a desideratum. — This volume fur- 
nishes a life of this extraordinary man in an available form for 
general circulation; combines the principal events and incidents 
of his external history in one complete panoramic view ; and em- 
braces an estiaiate of his intellectual, literary, and religious charac- 
ter, illustrated from his own writings. 

The most reraarkable passages of Foster's writings, collected 
and classified for convenience of reference and use. — In glancing 
over a page or volume of any writer, the eye rests with ravished 
attention upon the luminous points of thought, brilliant sentences 
or paragraphs, as a connoisseur of taste dwells upon particular 
features of a landscape, or lines of a painting. These more re- 
markable passages we have carefully collected from the whole range 
of Foster's published waitings (including those not yet issued from 
the American press), as a sort of memorabilia of his wonderful ge- 
nius, character, and sentiments. Some of these beauties of thought 
and imagery were never elaborated to ornament consecutive dis- 
course ; and others clustered along the continuity of essays and ar- 
ticles, are so complete in themselves as to be like jewels, or pearls, 
strung upon a thread of gold, that may be detached and contem- 



IV PREFACE. 

plated separately in unmarred beauty and undiinmed brilliancy. 
These thoughts, figures, and illustrations, are arranged under their 
appropriate topics, with headings to indicate their particular bear- 
ing or application, and numbered to facilitate reference. 

Foster as a Christian writer, — From the mode and associations 
of his literary labors, their religious character and bearing have not 
been appreciated. It is, however, questionable whether any posi- 
tion can be occupied of greater importance to the cause of religion 
and morals than that occupied by John Foster in his long connex- 
ion with the " Eclectic Review." The higher class of religious re- 
views, to a great extent, give tone to lighter publications, through 
all their gradations and myriad circulation ; and are to the church 
what outposts are to a military encampment. But the service of 
essayists, reviewers, and pamphleteers, receives little emolument 
at first, and is slowly appreciated. The political tracts of Swift, 
and the moral essays of Addison and Johnson, though not gaining 
to their authors much reputation or emolument at the time, formed 
a new epoch in literature, and have at length taken rank among 
the classics of our tongue. The service Foster has rendered in de- 
fending Christianity from the attacks of hierarchy and skepticism, 
and in promoting its applications in social reforms, and the general 
amelioration of the condition of the race, will be more highly ap- 
preciated in a brighter age. 

Hitherto the religious character and power of Foster's writings 
have been disguised by their secular aspects and associations. Cler- 
gymen confining themselves to professional reading, and all seeking 
works ostei>6ibly religious, have been deterred from obtauiing them. 
Yet there are fev7, if any writers, who have so faithfully observed 
all the claimed ap})lications of Christianity, and perhaps none who 
have furnished so clear and powerful statements and illustrations 
of the principal doctrines and duties of Revelation. The most 
grand religious ideas are interspersed through his more secular 
writings, like mines of gold through an unsuspected territory. In 
the absence of religious garb and profession, they are like a store 
crowded with the most valuable wares, without the ostentation of 
an advertising sign. 

Use and convenience of this volume. — Those who have not Fos- 
ter's works, will find here, in addition to a compendious view of his 
life, the passages they would mark and most admire in them. Those 
who have them, will also find its arrangement of topics and classi- 
fication of passages, Vv'ith headings indicating their scope or bearing, 
and copious index, greatly facilitating a reference to Foster's opin- 
ions, and the various use and application of his original and peerless 
thoughts, his splendid images, analogies, and illustrations. 



CONTENTS. 



Preface page 3 

Life, Character, and Writings, of Foster 5 

Thoughts of Foster 53 

CHAPTER I. 

EXISTENCE, attributes, WOUKS, AND PROVIDENCE, OF GOD. 

1 . Any Order of serious Reflection leads to God 53 

2. Omnipresence mysteriously veiled 53 

3. Enlarged Conception of the Deity 54 

4. Overawing Sense of God's Omniscience 54 

5. A Contemplation of God as a Spirit, invisible in his Presence, adapted 

to awaken Awe and Apprehension 55 

6. Attempt to escape the Divine Presence vain and presumptuous 60 

7. Grandeur and Glory of God i-eflected from his Works 61 

8. The Universe a Type — a Symbol of the Greatness and Glory of the 

Supreme 61 

9. Attributes of God revealed through the Diversity and Immensity of 

his Works 61 

10. Particularity of Divine Knowledge 62 

11. God overrules all Events 62 

12. A Belief in the Divine Existence and Sovereignty the only reliable 

Foundation of Virtue 63 

13. Deities of Paganism and false Religion, not above Crimination tjiem- 

selves, can not, in their Worship and Moral Systems, condemn Sin 
in their Votaries 63 

14. The Atheist 63 

15. Peculiar Illumination of the Atheist questioned 64 

16. Ignorant and arrogant Pretensions of the Atheist 64 

17. Certain Philosophers impatient of the Ideas of a Divine Providence 

and his Revelation to the World 65 

CHAPTER II. 

THE EVIDENCES OF RELIGION— THE SOURCES, PREJUDICES, AND TENDEN- 
CIES, OF SKEPTICISM, ETC. 

1. Unsettled Faith as unreasonable as presumptuous 67 

2. Christianity Everything or Nothing 68 

3. Chi'istianity the supreme Pursuit 68 

4. Branches of the Christian Argument 69 

5. Miracles not incredible 69 

6. Argument Irom Miracles 70 

7. Analogy of Pceligion to the Coitrse of Nature 70 

8. Proud Assumption of Tntidclity .^. 70 

9. Partial Knowledge of Divine Economy should repress reasoiiing Pride . 70 

A* 



VI CONTENTS. 

10. Process of the Physical Creation analogoiis to that of the Moral, .page 70 

11. Christianity beset with no more Difficulties than other Subjects 71 

12. Objectioiis to Christianity from the Discoveries of the Telescope an- 

swered by those of the Microscope 71 

13. Hopeless Attempt of the Deist to solve the great Problem of the Hu- 

man Condition 72 

14 . Prejudices of Unbelievers 72 

15. Seeking for secondary Causes to escape the Recognition of the Sover- 

eign Agency of Divine Providence .' 73 

16. Many betrayed into Infidelity by a blinded Admiration of the Genius 

of brilliant but unprincipled Authors 73 

17. Writings of Infidelity 74 

18. False Systems often apologized for, for the Pui-pose of disparaging all 

Religion 75 

19. Origin "of the elevated Ideas in the Pagan Theology 75 

20. Paganism distinguished from Divine Revelations 76 

21. Multiplicity of Pagan Wickedness 77 

22. Pride revolted into Infidelity by the impartial Philanthropy of Christi- 

anity 77 

23. Pervei-se Blindness of those who see no moral Beauty and Grandeur 

in Divine Revelation 77 

24. The blighting Influence of Infidelity 78 

25. The Gospel provides for those overlooked by Philosophy and false 

Religion 78 

26. Christianity dissevered from its Corruptions 78 

27. Glory of Religion obscured by imperfect Manifestations 79 

28. Christianity prejudiced by the ignorant Representations of its Friends . 79 

29. Chiistianily distinguished from its Corruptions 80 

30. The Evangelical System appears without Form or Comeliness to 

worldly Men 80 

31. Inadequate and narrow Views of some Christians 80 

32. The Go.spel adapted to all Orders of Mind '. 81 

33. Christianity the same .amid the various and changing Evils of the 

World 82 

34. Two Ways to Atheism 82 

35. Dreary Eminence of Infidelity 82 

36. Consummation of allowed Skepticism 83 

37. The boasted Triumph of Infidelity in the Death of Hume 83 

CHAPTER III. 

THE LAW OF GOB — ITS HOLINESS, COMPREHENSIVENESS, APPLICATIONS, 
AND EVASIONS. 

1. God a Lawgiver 86 

2. Supposition of a Divine Law necessary '. 86 

3. Comjsrehensiveness of the Divine Law 87 

4. The liaw necessarily holy 87 

5. The Law unalterable 88 

6. Comprehensive Application of the Law 88 

7. Complaisancy of holy Beings in the Law 89 

8. Distinctions of the Law effaced 89 

9. Dominion of the Law sought to be restricted 90 

10. The great Sanction of Morals arises from the Recognition of the Di- 

vine Law, and not from civil Government 90 

11. Good Principles efHcacious only as abetted by the Sanctions of a Di- 

vine Law 91 

12. Second great Commandment 91 

13. The Law to be applied in judging the Character and Actions of Men. .92 

14. Conscience the Monitor of the Divine Law 92 

15. The Facihties of Conscience for applying the Divine Law 93 

16. Conscience restrains from violating the Law 93 



CONTENTS. Vll 

17. Conscience will minister in executing the Penalty of the Law... PAGE 93 

is! Conscience perverted obscures the Distinctions of the Law 93 

19.' Conscience made unfaithful to the Law 94 

20. Modes of evading the Law 94 

CHAPTER IV. 

INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 

1. Sinful Nature of Man disclosed by his Acts 98 

2 Ruline Passions of Man selfish - ..-.-.. 98 

3. The vast Amount of Wickedness, repressed by menaced Retribution, 

to be charged to the Account of Human Nature 98 

4. Civil Law and Philosophy can not avail fully to repress Depravity.. 99 
5 Philosophers, overlooking the moral Perversion of Human Nature, 

blind Guides 99 

6. Reproductive Power of Moral Evil 99 

7 Depravity impressed upon the chief Works of Man 100 

8 Character of the Mass not to be infen-ed from individual Examples 



of Virtue . 



100 



9. Wickedness amid Scenes of Beauty 101 

10. Appalling Aspect of Man's Depravity 101 

11. Popular Moral Ignorance 101 

12 A Figure of the Moral State ot the World 101 

13. Aggregate View of the History of the World appalling 102 

14! Common Persuasion of Human Depravity 102 

15. Popular Ignorance intercepts the Rays oi Moral Illumination loa 

16* Stupidity of ignorant Wickedness at the Approach of Death 103 

17. Portentous Aspect of Masses of Human Beings perishing for Lack ot 

Knowledge }^ 

18. Retrospect of the Heathen World 1^4 

19. State of the Pagan World :■■■-•■% J,, 

20. Thick Darkness of Romanism intimated by the sombre Shadows still 

resting upon Nations and the Church 105 

21. Savage State - - :•••■■■■ l" * " •}?,i 

22 Depravity a Barrier to the beneticent Operation of Government iw 

23. Depravity assimilates Civil Institutions to its own Standard 106 

24! Of an extremely depraved Child : - - - -lOo 

25. The Pagan World— its degrading Rites, degraded Population, and 

Evidences of Spiritual Death - - - - ; lOo 

26 Depravity evinced in a universal Tendency to Social Deterioration. .1U« 

27 The formidable Prevalence of Evil an inscrutable Mystery 108 

28' Depravity evinced by formidable Opposition to the Progress of Re- 
ligion, and relentless Persecution of the Witnesses to the Truth in 
successive Ages 1^9 

CHAPTER V. 

CHRISTIANITY— ITS DOCTRINES AND APPLICATIONS. 

1. Compendiousness of the Christian Scheme 110 

2. Salvation by the Law impossible - • ;.- J-|| 

3. A Savior unappreciated without Acknowledgment ot bin. lii 

4. Necessity of Atonement llj 

5. Comfortable Reliance upon the Atonement - - - - - - - J-J--5 

6. A Divine Liberator from the Prejudices and Passions ot Depravity 

7. Mystery of the Origin of Evil .................. ......113 

8. Technical Terms should be used spanngly in distinguishing Chris- 

tian Doctrines 1 j^ 

9. The Gospel demeaned by bigoted Interpreters iJ-^ 

10. Ignorance and Bigotry in Christian Profession 114 

11. Specimen of a Rehgious Bigot H* 



VIU CONTENTS. 

12. Cowardice of bigoted Errorists page 114 

13. The Lines of Revelation and true Philosophy coalesce and become 

identical '- 114 

14. Metaphors of Scripture should not be forced to an undue Application. 114 

15. The Character and Offices of Christ better distinguished by the Lan- 

guage of Scripture than of Creeds 115 

16. Want of Discrimination in distinguishing the Righteous and the 

Wicked 115 

17. Deep Sense of Unworthiness proper to the most Moral — even the 

Young 115 

18. Salvation by Faith in Jesus Christ 116 

19. Uniform Use of peculiar Phrases in the Pulpit not desirable 117 

20. Existence and Ministry of Angels 117 

21. Rank and Sphere of Angels 118 

22. Kingdom of God on Earth and in Heaven connected by vital Sym- 

pathies 118 

23. Inefficiency of mere Means 118 

24 . Melancholy Musings in the Direction of Fatalism 119 

25. In its Fortification of depraved Dispositions and Circumstances, the 

Soul defies any Assault of mere Human Power 119 

26. Vain Confidence in Human Agency 120 

27. Effects, disproportionate to any known Order of Means, may be ne- 

cessary to the universal Triumph of the Gospel 120 

28. Triumph of the Truth through the Gospel 120 

29. Inadequate View of the Social Application of Christianity 121 

30. Amenability of Statesmen 121 

31. Tendency to Reform , .122 

32. The Elevation of the Race possible through wise Institutions and 

Statesmen 123 

33. Progressive Amelioration of the Condition of the Race through the 

Applications of Christianity 123 

34. Timid Conservatism 123 

35. Jurisdiction of Civil Law may be restrained by Conscience 124 

36. Individual anticipating and embracing Social Reform 124 

37. Ceremonial of Ordination liable to be unduly magnified among Dis- 

senters 124 

38. Church Independenoe distinguished from National Establishments.. 125 

39. Malorganization of National Establishments evinced by Failure to ac- 

complish their proposed Ends 125 

40. Adequate Reformation of a National Church Establishment impossi- 

ble 126 

41. Certainty of the Prevalence of the simpler and true Order of Chris- 

tianity 127 

42. Efficiency of Independency 127 

43. Ineffic:t3ncy of National Church Establishments 128 

44. Indictment against the National Establishment — impossibility of its 

Reform 130 

45. Cavils at the tardy Success of Missions in India 132 

46. Indiscriminate Eulogy over the Dead in prescribed Service 132 

47. In National Establishments, Subserviency often preferred to Talents 

and Piety 133 

48. Romanism characterized 133 

49. Romanism has symbolized with Heathenism 134 

50. In Romanism Forms have superseded the Spirit of Christianity 134 

51. Absurdity of pretended hereditary Holiness 134 

52. Formalism resorted to, to ease Conscience '. 135 

53. Mummery and Mimicry of Romanism 135 

54. Interested Apologists for Romanism 136 

55. Romanism unchangeable L36 

56. Ascendency of Romanism impossible 136 



CONTENTS. IX 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE OBLIGATIONS AND DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

1. Indifference to the gi-eat moral Conflict waging in the World., page 137 

2. Apathy toward the Formidable Sway of Moral Evils 137 

3. Divine Sovereignty falsely pleaded against Obligation 137 

4. Indolence operating to repress Sense of Obligations 138 

5. Delay for more manifest Tokens of Duty 138 

6. Doctrine of Decrees available to the highest Christian Zeal and Activity 139 

7. Shrinking from the Responsibility of tlie Servants of God 139 

8. Inefficient Conception of Spiritual Relations 140 

9. Strange Apathy of the Masses of Mankind to Religious Truth. ...'.'.'! 141 

10. Diversified Appeals to religious Emotion ineffectual 142 

11. Special Privileges improved .142 

12. Temporary EbuHition of Benevolent Feeling .' ' '.142 

13. Appeals to Gratitude 142 

14. Catholic Charity evinced _"l43 

15. Peculiar Faults of moderate Men I43 

16. Vast Results from apparently insignificant Causes I4.5 

17. Aggressive Christianity ' .145 

18. Christian Warfare 146 

19. Self-Devotion 146 

20. Expression in an Evening Prayer 146 

21. A Life not devoted to God profitless I47 

22. The Covetous Man I47 

23. Unemployed Resources of the Church 147 

24. Denominational Appellations should be repressed 147 

25. The Philosophy ot Prayer 148 

26. Prayer to Heaven the greatest Resource of Earth 148 

27. Christian Vigilance 148 

28. Avoidance of Temptation I49 

29. Triumph of Meekness I49 

30. Incipient Temptation 149 

31. Christian Heroism 149 

32. Conflicts of Wisdom and Virtue I49 

33. Conscience 149 

34. Watch and pray 150 

3.5. Rule of Faith ' .150 

36. Influences unfriendly to Piety 150 

37. Religion submerged in the World 150 

38. Isolated Natures repressed by uncongenial Associations 151 

39. Reputation for Virtue necessary to Confidence 151 

40. Efficacy of Religious Habits ] " ] . .151 

41. Attractiveness of simple and unaffected Piety 152 

42. Slow Progress in Piety • 152 

43. The Savior, though unseen, loved 152 

44. Desire of Association ; [153 

45. God dwells in his People ! ... 154 

46. The Rewards of Piety progressively developed ! .' 154 

CHAPTER VII. 

OF MAN— THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER— ITS SOURCES AND DIVERSITIES 
—POPULAR IGNORANCE, AND THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE. 

1. On the Greatness of Man 156 

2. Great Men 157 

3. Indiflerence of the Masses to the Distinctions of Genius 159 

4. The myriad Influences combining to form Character 160 

5. Comparatively trifling Incidents of Early Life derive vast Importance 

from prospective Bearing upon Character and Destiny 161 



X CONTENTS. 

6. Unsuspected ImiJortancc of Early Life page IfU 

7. Education of Life 163 

8. Elements of Ciiaracter traced to tlieir Sources 162 

9. Absorbing Power of a Man of Genius 162 

10. States of Mind and Progress of Character are the Life, and not a Se- 

ries of Facts and Dates 162 

11. The Immortality of Character 163 

12. Want of Self Confidence an Element of Weakness of Character 163 

13. Obstinacy of Character not Decision 164 

14. Energy of Character augmented by vigorous Physical Constitution. . .164 

15. A strenuous Will an Element of decided Character 165 

16. Reh'gious F;nlh the highest Element of Moral Courage ] 65 

17. I know no Mortification so severe, &c 1 G6 

18. Query : whether the Generality of Minds, the common Order, could 

be cultivated into Accuracy and Discrimination of general Thought.! 66 

19. Commonplace Character 166 

20. Those averse to Inquiry 166 

21. Aversion to Pteliection 166 

22. Complex Action and Diversified Experience of the Mind 167 

23. Learned in all Science and History but that of Oneself 167 

24. Waste of Thoughts 167 

25. Mortifying Review of the Progress of Character 169 

26. Observation available to the Formation of Character 169 

27. Amplitude and Symmetry of Character 170 

28. Aversion to Self-Knowledge 170 

29. Escape from Reflection 171 

30. Indisposition of Mankind to think 172 

31. Thoughts the Mirror of tlie Heart 172 

32. Fundamental Cure of evil Thoughts 172 

33. Gradation and Fruits of wicked Thoughts 172 

34. Religion the noblest Pursuit 173 

35. Vices iiourishing in Old Age 173 

36. Splendid Talents without virtuous Philanthropy 173 

37. Limited Acquirements from unlimited Means of Improvement 173 

38. Valuable Acquirements personal 174 

39. Approving the Good but pursuing the Bad 175 

40. Value of Conversational Power 175 

41. Assimilating Iniiuenco of Intercourse witli Men of Genius 175 

42. Proper End of Reading 176 

43. Gentleness tempered by Firmness 176 

44. Long Familiarity with the Fashionable World destroys the Relish for 

the more substantial Enjoyments of Life 176 

45. Character of Courtiers 176 

46. Amiableness of Character incompatible with the sublimest Virtue. . .176 

47. Exquisite Susceptibility 177 

48. Individuality of Manners 177 

49. Discriminnticn of Character 178 

50. 51, 52. Descriptions (;f Character 178 

53. Eliect of Amusements 178 

54. Power of bad Habit 179 

55. The Importance and Necessity of a Ruling Passion 179 

56. Danger of a Ruling Passion when it leads to an exclusive Pursuit 179 

57. Important Points ascertained concerning tlie best course of Action. ..180 

58. Progressive Formation of Ciiaracter overlooked in many Ladies 181 

59. Power of popular Intelhgencc and Virtue 181 

60. I\Ioral Illumination intercepted by Poinilar Ignoi'ance 182 

61. A Soul confined by impervious Prison-Walls of Ignorance 182 

62. Atiecting Retrospective View of the Ignorance of the World 182 

63. Freedom and spontaneous Emanation of Knowledge 183 

6 J. Mind extinguished by the Body 183 



CONTENTS. Xi 

65. Knowledge like the Sun page 183 

66. Secular Knowledge associated with religious 183 

67. Estimate of the Influence of Education 183 

68. Prevailing Perversion of Conscience 184 

CHAPTER VIII. 

YOUTH— ITS ADVANTAGES AND PERILS— DOMESTIC LIFE AND VIRTUES- 
EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 

1. Active Powers of Youth 186 

2. Temptations of Youth '.186 

3. Successive Periods of Life soon passed 187 

4. Disregard of tl>e Experience of Others an 111 Omen .'..'..'.'.'.'.'.'..187 

5. The Harvest of later Life must correspond with the Seeding of Youth. 187 

6. Time is the greatest of Tyrants ^187 

7. Youth is not like a new Garment 187 

•8. The Retrospect on Youth 188 

9. Visiting the Grave of a Friend 188 

10. The whole System of Life !'.!'. '.".188 

11. Price of Pleasure !!.'l88 

12. Deplored Neglect of Culture of Youth. 188 

13. Insensibility to the Approach of Old Age ! ! !l88 

14 . True Value of Youth ] 89 

15. Youth improved makes Old Age happy 189 

16. Philosophy of the Happinesss of domestic and all human Alliances'. .190 

17. Growuig Strength of nuitual Ati'ectious 191 

18. Necessities of Man's Social Nature 191 

19. Disturbances of mutual. Confidence not necessary to confirm it 192 

20. Incipient Domestic Disputes greatly to be dreaded 192 

21. How far should mutual Confidence be extended 192 

22. Delicate Concealment of Ignorance or Error of a Companion !!l93 

23. In Domestic Disputes, a Want of Sentiment diminishes Suffering 193 

24. In Congenial Domestic Alliances a hopeless Predicament 193 

25. Inconsiderate Domestic Alliances 193 

26. Early Education greatly defective 194 

27. Undue Resti-aint of Children to be deprecated 194 

28. Education of Children in simple Habits important 194 

29. Children's Ball [ '.194 

30. Proper Companionship of Children important 195 

31. True Scope and Aim of Education ' 195 

32. Fearful Responsibility of Parents I95 

33. Rules for early Religious Education 196 

34. Said of a Lady who infamously spoilt her Son— a perverse Child. . . !l97 

35. Apprehensions of Parents for the Welfare of their Children 197 

CHAPTER IX. 

HUMAN LIFE — ITS FRAILTY AND BREVITY— FUTURE LIFE— ITS MYSTE- 
RIES AND REVELATIONS— PERSUASIVES TO A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

1. Reason of the undue influence of Things seen 199 

2. Intimations of the Transitoriness of Life 200 

3. Man fades as a Leaf 200 

4. Man fades while Nature blooms 200 

5. Winter, though denying other Gifts, yields a Grave .".' '.'201 

6. Much of Human Decay not visible 201 

7. Unperceived Succession of Hu.man Generations ...!..'.' .201 

8. Uncertain Continuance of Life 202 

9. The Records of Time are emphatically the History of Death! !!!.". .202 

10. Memorials of advancing Life 203 

11. The Aged— Presages of Old Age '..'.....'..'.'..'...204 

12. Old Age the safer Period of Life !..'".204 



Xll CONTENTS. 

13. Insensibility to Mortal Destiny page 204 

14. Retrospect of the Year '. 205 

15. Misimprovement of Time 205 

Ifi. Precursors of approaching Death unwelcome 206 

17. Death the Termination of a Journey 206 

18. Mystery of the Change of Death 207 

19. What the Activity of the Future State 207 

20. Revelations of Eternity 207 

21. The Future partially revealed or wisely veiled 207 

22. Future World veiled 208 

23. Mystery of Man's Relations to the Future— his uncertain Progression . 208 

24. Irrepressible Longing to know the Future ' 210 

25. Problems of this Life solved in the next • 210 

26. Pagan Views of a Future State inefficacious 210 

27. Offence of elegant Writers, confounding the Christian's with the Pa- 

gan's Triumph over Death 211 

28. Vague Notions of Heaven 212 

29. Grand Deliverance of Death 212 

30. Death the sovereign Remedy for all Infirmities 213 

31. State of the Righteous in Heaven to be desired 213 

32. Future Greatness of Man 214 

33. Lofty A spirations for the Future Life 214 

34. Sorrows of this compensated by the Joys of the Future Life 215 

35. Contemplation of the departed Righteous 215 

36. Death the Exchange of the Earthly for the Heavenly Treasure 216 

37. Premonitions of mortal Dissolution welcomed 216 

38. Joyous Anticipation of the Heavenly State 216 

39. The aged Believer approaching a Future I/ife 216 

40. Regrets of converted Old Age 217 

41. Death of the Righteous and of the Wicked contrasted 217 

42. Without God in the World 218 

43. Presumption of Delay for Divine Influences 219 

44. Approving the Good, but pursuing the Wrong 220 

45. Indifference to Otters of Salvation 220 

46. Unprofited by the Gospel 220 

47. Indecision is decision 220 

48. Without God 221 

49. Meet Death alone 221 

50. Danger of Procrastination 222 

51. Persuasion to religious Consideration 222 

52. Presumption of expecting more efficacious Means of Salvation 223 

CHAPTER X. 

PLACES, NATIONS, MEN, AND BOOKS. 

1. Babylon 224 

2. Egypt 224 

3. Illustrious Names 225 

4. French and English 225 

5. Irish .225 

6. State of Ireland 225 

7. Addison : Deficiency of his Writings in religious Sentiment 226 

8. Baxter : Idea of his Life 227 

9. Blair : his Style 227 

10. Burke, as compared with Johnson 228 

11. Lord Burleigh 228 

12. Chalmers : Faults of Style 229 

13. Lord Chatham 229 

14. Coleridge : his original Modes of Thought, but obscure Style 229 

15. Curran 231 

16. Miss Edgeworth : Moral Faults of her Writings 231 



CONTENTS. Xiii 

17. Fox— Slavery page 233 

18. Andrew Fuller 233 

19. Grattan 234 

20. Robert Hall 234 

21. Harris: his Stj-le 235 

22. Howai'd : Philanthropy his Master-Passion 235 

23. Home Tooke 236 

24. Johnson : elevated Moral Tone of his Writings 237 

25. Thomas More : his disting:uished and blameless Character 238 

26. Pope : Religious Character of his Writings 239 

27. Shakspere 239 

28. Jeremy Taylor 239 

29. Formidable Extent of Literature almost discourages Pursuit 240 

30. Understanding the Basis of Mental Excellence and Sound Literature. 240 

31. Eiiect of reading a transcendent Dramatic work 241 

32. Commonplace Thoughts can not arrest Attention 241 

33. Importance of Consistency in fictitious Writings 241 

34. Conversational Disquisition on Novels 242 

35. Great Deficiency of conclusive Writing and Speaking 242 

36. Commonplace Preachers 243 

37. A Class of Writings as void of Merit as of literary Faults 243 

38. Remark on being requested to translate Buchanan's Latin Ode to May 243 

39. Commonplace Truth is of no Use 243 

40. The greatest Excellence of Writing 244 

41. Infei-ior religious Books 244 

42. The Common of Literature 244 

43. The Class of Books that should be read 245 

44. Waste of Time in reading inferior Books 245 

45. Ancient Metaphysics 245 

48. The Moral EtFect of the Iliad upon the World 245 

47. Philosophy of the demoralizing Influence of Literature 246 

49. Antagonism to Christianity in professedly Christian Literature 247 

50. Responsibility of elegant Writers 247 

51. Amenability of Literature to a Standard 247 

52. Naturalness of Characters no Excuse for their Depravity 248 

53. Elegant Writers often confound Christian with Pagan Doctrines.... 248 

54. The good Men of elegant Writers less than Christians 249 

55. Elegant Writers restrict their Views too much to this Life 249 

56. Defective Views of the Futui-e State in popular Writers 249 

57. Unfaithfulness of elegant Authors to the Christian Standard 250 

58. Fine Writers present fictitious or corrupting Aspects of Society 250 

59. Discrepancy between Pagan and Christian Virtue overlooked 250 

60. Pagan Distinctions in Morals confounded with the Christian 251 

61. Divorcement of Literature from Religion by popular Writers 251 

62. True Connexion of Religion and Literature overlooked by Authors. 252 

CHAPTER XL 

PASSION, AFFECTION, SENSIBILITY, AND SENTIMENT. 

1. Conversation on Cruelty. ..1 254 

2. Poor Horse, to draw both your Load and your Driver ! 254 

3. Fieurative Use of ludicrous Associations depraving 254 

4. Cruelty of the EngUsh 255 

5. IMrs. 's Passions are like a little Whirlwind 255 

6. Curious Process of kindling the Passion 255 

7. Interesting Disquisition on the Value of continuous Passion 255 

8. Strong Imagination of lying awake in a solitary Room 255 

9. Some People's Sensibility a mere Bundle of Aversions 255 

10. Fine Sensibilities are like Woodbines ; 255 

11. Infinite and incalculable Caprices of Feeling .255 

1 



XIV CONTENTS. 

12. Importance of having a System of exercising the Aflfections.. page 256 

13. Captious Feelings incident to a devoted AttiBction 256 

14. Sad Pleasure in Grief 256 

15. Triumph over Evils in Word rather than Deed 956 

16. Hostile Feeling mitigated to Kindness by seen Affliction 257 

17. Despair in Suffering 257 

18. Sorrows cleave to the Heart 257 

19. Elements of Interest in Conversation 258 

20. Reactive Influence of kind and of vindictive Acts 258 

21. Undue Tax upon Attention of Friends 258 

22. Accurate Judgment of the Characters of Friends 259 

23. Mutual Assistance in the Improvement of Friends 259 

24. Taste for the Sublime important 259 

25. Inappreciation of Works of Genius 260 

26. Incajjability for Conversation 260 

27. Dancing alow Amusement 269 

28. Inappreciation of any Exliibitions of Mind 261 

29. Limitless Range of moral and metaphysical Truth 261 

30. Incitements of high Example 261 

31. Different Orders of Talent 261 

32. Connexion of Imagination and Judgment 262 

33. The Impression of Genius not generally appreciated 262 

34. Communication of Ideas to a congenial Mind 262 

35. Beautiful Ideas transient 262 

36. Reluctance to Mental Exertion 263 

37. An Original Preacher 263 

38. Qualifications of an Orator or Poet 263 

39. Nothing New under the Sun 263 

40. A fascinating Companion amid fascinating Scenes 263 

41. No Susceptibility to Mental Excitation 264 

42. Intellect without Sentiment 264 

43. Diversity of Talents 264 

44. Perverted Genius 265 

45. Moral Sentiment not necessarily elevated by Investigations of Sci- 

ence 265 

46. Figure of perverted Use of Memory 266 

47. Characteristic of Genius 266 

48. Importance of the Imagination 266 

CHAPTER XII. 

OBSERVATIONS UPON NATURE, NATURAL OBJECTS AND SCENES — ANALO- 
GIES, ETC. » 

1. Infinity of Creation ....267 

2. Unperceived Extent of the Universe 267 

3. Invisible Creation around Us '. 268 

4. Dependence on God for returning Seasons 268 

5. Change of Spring grateful as surprising — its Analogy 269 

6. Sublimity of a Mountain 270 

7. Sublimity of a Cataract 270 

8. Sublimity of the Sea 271 

9. Sublimity of the Sun 272 

10. Sublimity of the Heavens 273 

11. Rising of the Moon : Train of Reflection suggested by it 273 

12. The farthest Excursion of the Imagination ''does not reach the Limit 

of the Universe 274 

13. Vast Disparity between the Grandeur of Nature and the Sentiments 

with which it is contemplated 275 

14. Grand Conceit of the Sun and a Comet, as conscious Beings, encoun- 

tering each other in the Circuit of the Heavens 276 

15. Description of an exquisitely soft and pensive Evening 276 



CONTENTS. XV 

16. Little Bird in a Tree page 276 

17. On listening to the Song of a Bird '.'.'.''..'.'.. 276 

18. On seeing a Butterfly _'275 

19. Correspondence probable between remote Parts of the Universe... .276 

20. Looking at dark and moving Clouds 277 

21. Observation during a Visit in a Rural District '.".'.".'.".277 

22. Development of Truth from reflective Observation .' .'.'278 

23. Varied Knowledge greatly increases the Interest and Instruction of 

daily Observation 278 

24. Ditterence between Seeing and Observing ." . . .279 

2.5. On observing in a Moonlight Walk the Shadow of a great Rock in a~ 

Piece of Water 279 

26. Thoughts in traversing Rural Scenes '.'. !.'.'!".!'.!![ .279 

27. On Observation \[] 279 

28. Vivifying Influences of Imagination ..'.'...'.'.'. !280 

29. Diversion from natural to artificial Scenes '...'.'. .....280 

30. Lively Fancy invests inanimate Objects with Life .280 

31. Mankind acquire most of their Knowledge by Sensation, and very 

little by Reflection 280 

32. Advantage of the close Study of Character .'-.'.'.'.*.' .280 

33. Women observe Manners more than Characters 280 

34. Unusual Appreciation of the Beauties of Nature 281 

35. Philosophizing in Observation '.'. .'"!281 

36. Efl:ect on one's Ideas from Musing so much Sub Dio '...'.'.'. .282 

37. Observing is Reading the Book of Nature 282 

38. Inappreciation of the wonderful Laws of Nature displayed in famU- 

lar Things 282 

39. Improvement of Observation more important than its Extension 282 

40. A Man of Ideahty difluses his Life through all Things around him.. 283 

CHAPTER Xm. 

MISCELLANIES. 

1. Visit to Thornbury Church : Reflections 284 

2. Precipice reflected in a deep Pit: Analogy '.'.'.'.'.'.285 

3. Reflections from a Surface of Water : Analogy 286 

4. On seeing a Halcyon 286 

5. Observing with Interest the Tumults occasioned in a Canal 286 

6. Ettect of natural Scenes on Character 286 

7. Objects of Afrection invested with additional Charms by interesting 

Associations 286 

8. Field of Oaks : Figure 287 

9. Moonbeams on the Surface of a River 287 

10. On throwing large Stones down a deep Pit 287 

11. Lantern in a dark Night 287 

12. Entered a large Cavern 287 

13. Drops of Rain falling on a Sheet of Water 287 

14. Power of Association 288 

15. An observant Man 288 

16. Selfish Alliances easier and stronger than benevolent ones. . . , 288 

17. Exhibition of overstrained Politeness 289 

18. Worthy Patrons important 289 

19. Peculiarities of the Age 289 

20. Inequalities of the Race 290 

21. A malignant Observation of the World 290 

22. Dormant Elements of Evil in Society 291 

23. An oppressed Nation .■*... 291 

24. Contrasted Conditions of Society 291 

25. Imagined Disclosure of the Machinations and Motives of Rulers and 

Courts 292 

26. Responsibility gf States , 292 



XVI CONTENTS. 

27. Unworthy Obiects of War , page 292 

28. War: its Horrors— slight Groimds 293 

29. Scope and Dignity of Metaphysical Inquiries — 295 

30. All Subjects resolvable into First Principles 296 

31. Limits to Metaphysical Inquiries 296 

32. Metaphysics a Means of Intellectual Discipline 296 

33. Practical Tiniths not recondite 297 

34. Mohammedanism 297 

35. Remarkable Manifestation of Mind in a Child 297 

36. Influence of Music 298 

37. Peter in Prison 299 

38. Powers of Langiiage 300 

39. " Omnis in hoc'' 301 

40. Defence of the Utilitarian Theory 303 

41. Supposition of Angelic Companionship 304 

42. " This qualification might be attained, if — " 304 

43. Logic efficient in Per.'^uasion 304 

44. Intellectual Pursuits aided by the Affections 305 

45. All Reasoning is Retrospect 305 

46. Figure of an equable Temper 305 

47. Adversity, thou Thistle of Life ! 305 

48. A Man of Genius hiay sometimes suffer a miserable Sterility 305 

49. Casual Thoughts are sometimes oF great Value 305 

50. Self-complacent Ignorance in judging of distinguislaed Characters.. 305 

51. Fragment of a Letter (never sent) to a Friend 306 

52>. Most interesting Idea, that of Renovated Being 306 

53. Pleasure of Recognition 306 

54. Misapprehension of Friends 306 

55. On the Question of the Equality of Men and Women ,307 

56. Amusing Idea, of Playing a Concert of People 307 

57. Observation during a Walk of a few Miles alone 307 

58. Revelation explained by Science .307 

59. An active Mind, like an .ffiolian Harp, arrests even the Winds, &c...308 

60. Test of Originality SOB 

61. Standard Characters— a proper Touchstone for fashionable Life 308 

62. Disparity between Means and Ends— mortifying Schemes 308 

63. To the Deity— a Prayer for Usefulness and Happiness 308 

64. Interesting Reminiscences—Retrospect of youthful Scenes 308 

65. Deterioration of Political Institutions— their Tendency to Corruption 309 

66. Mutual Recognition of Inferior Animals 309 

67. The lost Teachings of our Lord — Speculations. 310 

68. Disagreeable Associations — Vi-\^d Impressions of Death 310 

69. The rational Soul and future Existence of the Brute Creation 310 

70. Mode of addressing the Deity — on addressing a Friend 310 

71. Due Resb'aint in Comjiany- Presence of a third Person 310 

72. Figure of the Darkness of Reason — Analogy of polished Steel 310 

73. Value of Observation of trifling Events— Incident wliile in Ireland. .311 

74. An intrusive Companion — an indication of worthless Company 311 

75. Unperceived Origin of Images of Thought 311 

76. Transmission of ignorant Habits— the same for two Centuries past.. 311 

77. Deception of the Senses 311 

78. Excitation of Mind essential to the Enjoyment of some Persons 312 

79. Thoughtless Destruction of Life 312 

80. Little Interest of Human Beings in each other 312 

81. Imperfection of the Jewish Dispensation — why so inadequate? 313 

82. Self-Deception betraying one into a vain Estimate of Capacity 313 

83. Uncertainty of the Future — Pceflections in a Field 313 

84. Fi"agment of a Letter, never sent 313 



THE 



LIFE, CHARACTEE, AND WRITINGS, 



JOHN FOSTER. 



Often, when strolling along some quiet walk 
winding near the banks of our noble Hudson, the 
attention is suddenly arrested by a succession of rip- 
ples, swelling to the compass and force of waves, and 
plashing along the shore. The observer looks with 
surprise for the cause of so contiguous and manifest 
an effect. No keel passing near, no gust of wind, 
has disturbed the placid bosom of the waters. Still 
gazing with inquiring wonder, at length he descries 
a noble steamer far above him, moving majestically 
along the opposite margin of the channel, the motion 
of whose wheels has sent waves impelling each other 
over the wide surface of the river, and dashing at his 
feet. So undulations of influence from the lives and 
works of great men reach the remotest shores of the 
ocean of human society, and are heard and felt in 
perpetual succession after they have passed from the 
view of the world, and their agency is forgotten. 

Homer, Shakspere, and Milton ; Aristotle, Plato, Ba- 

1* 



6 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

con, and Newton ; Alexander, .Caesar, and Bonaparte 
— gave impulse and direction to the human mind 
that have extended to our times, and are felt in this 
remote part of the globe. A quaint w^riter has said, 
"Universal history, the history of what man has ac- 
complished in this world, is at bottom but the history 
of what great men have done in it." 

Republics, no less than monarchies, have been reg- 
ulated by single minds ; only in the former there has 
been a more frequent change of masters. Pericles 
ruled Athens with little less than absolute sway, and 
Athens at that time pretended to the command of 
Greece. Universal learning, natural science, politi- 
cal, moral, and religious opinions, have been trans- 
mitted from one age to another in the conceptions 
and language of great men. Greece and Rome now 
address the world, and influence human civilization, 
only through a few of their most illustrious poets, 
historians, philosophers, and statesmen. The history 
of the world in the military or philosophical, j)olitical 
or theological, mechanical or commercial character 
of different ages or nations, is preserved and repre- 
sented in the lives of great men whose names appear 
conspicuous above the ground level of past genera- 
tions, as a few summits of the Andes, Alps, and Him- 
alehs, peer above the vast mountain-range, and are the 
first and almost all that is seen by the distant and ad- 
mitting beholder. 

Men of genius have been the interpreters of scrip- 
ture, the authors of canons, creeds, and articles of 
belief, for the world. The influence of Augustine and 
of Pelagius has been rejoroduced through their re- 
spective schools of theology to the present time. Nu- 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 7 

merous denominations receive their doctrinal pecu- 
liarities from Arius, Calvin, and Wesley ; while the 
particular history of each religious sect has been to 
a gi'eat extent detennined, through their succeeding 
periods, by a few distinguished names. G-enius has 
given expression to universal history ; distinguished 
the character of the state and the church in succeed- 
ing ages ; and wields the only legitimate earthly sov- 
ereignty. 

From this law of the ascendency of genius — the 
supremacy of intellect — we predict the growing fame 
of John Foster; which, notwithstanding its present 
comparative greatness, is yet in its bud. The extraor- 
dinary depth of his speculations, too profound for the 
appreciation of the unthinking mass, may exclude 
him from popular circles and libraries. " The capa- 
bility of being interested by Foster and drawn irre- 
sistibly along by the mighty current of his massive 
thought, is of itself a proof to him who feels it that 
his intellectual nonage is past and gone, and suffices 
to establish his claim to the fellowshijD of thinking 
men." As a dissenter, and yet worse a baptist, and 
worse still a universal and radical reformer, he is 
viewed with jealousy by the friends of monopoly and 
aristocracy in the church or state. The same preju- 
dice, therefore, that dimmed the reputation of Mil- 
ton, Cromwell, and Roger Williams, may temporarily 
obscure his fame. But though opposed by some, and 
unappreciated by others, his influence will continue 
and grow. His works have already taken rank among 
the most profound of English classics ; and thinking 
minds of succeeding ages will delight to commune 
with John Foster, when almost all the names of the 



8 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

last and present generation shall have been forgot- 
ten. 

John Foster was the elder son of John and Ann 
Foster, and was born in 1770 at a place called Wads- 
worth lanes, in the parish of Halifax, Yorkshire, Eng- 
land. His father was a strong-minded man, and so 
addicted to reading and meditation, that on this ac- 
count he deferred involving himself in the cares of a 
family till upward of forty. His acquaintance with 
theological writers was extensive ; and in the absence 
of the pastor of the church of which he was a mem- 
ber, he was often called upon to conduct the services 
of public worship. 

Present in the original convention by which the 
British and Foreign Bible Society was formed, the 
elation of his pious joy was manifest to all, as the 
venerable Christian conversed upon the subject, and 
indulged in the bright visions of hope in reference to 
the world he was leaving. " The noblest motive is 
the public good," was a favorite sentiment and emi- 
nently characteristic of his life. At the family altar 
he almost invariably made particular mention of his 
son ; and the most earnest petition in the social meet- 
ings held at his house was, *' Lord bless the lads" — 
including his son and a companion Avho were always 
present. The mother of Foster was of congenial 
tastes, and the counterpart to her companion in sound- 
ness of understanding, integrity, and piety. 

From such parents John Foster received the ele- 
ments of his social, intellectual, and moral character. 
As early as the age of twelve years, he expresses 
himself as having had a " painful sense of an awk- 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 9 

ward but entire individuality." Till the age of four- 
teen he worked at spinning wool to a thread by the 
hand-wheel ; the three following years at weaving. 
His associates and pursuits were invested with a 
sickening vulgarity, and he felt thus early a presenti- 
ment of a more intellectual — a nobler destiny. 

At the age of seventeen years he made a public 
profession of religion ; and subsequently, through the 
advice of friends, especially his pastor, Dr. Fawcett, 
and in accordance with his own convictions, he de- 
vwted himself to the Christian ministry. At Brearly 
Hall, under the tuition of Dr. Fawcett, he commenced 
classical studies, and a more systematic course of 
mental cultivation, in connexion with a few others, 
among- whom was William Ward the illustrious rais- 
sionary. He prosecuted his studies with great assi- 
duity in conjunction with his accustomed manual oc- 
cupations, frequently spending whole nights in read- 
ing and meditation, and generally on those occasions 
his favorite resort was an adjacent grove. His scho- 
lastic exercises were performed with great labor and 
slowly. His habits were frugal and temperate from 
choice. Referring to these in later life, he says : " I 
still possess what may be called invariable health ; 
my diet continues of the same inexpensive kind ; wa- 
ter is still my drink. I congratulate myself often on 
the superiority in this respect which I shall possess 
in a season of difficulty, over many that I see. I 
could, if necessary, live with philosophic complacen- 
cy on bread and water, on herbs, or on sour milk 
with the Tartars." 

After spending three years at Brearly Hall, he en- 
tered the baptist college at Bristol, and was under 



10 CHARACTER AND V/RITINGS 

the immediate influence of Mr. Hughes, the founder 
of the British and Foreign Bible Society, a man of 
genius and of congenial spirit, with whom a lasting 
intimacy was formed. No one perhaps had more in- 
fluence over Foster, or aided more his first essays' at 
authorship. 

Shortly after leaving Bristol, May 26, 1792, he set- 
tled at Newcastle-on-the-Tyne, and remained there 
about three months. 

In 1793, he w^as engaged as pastor of the baptist 
church in Dublin ; and after remaining there in that 
relation eight or nine months, and as much longer as 
teacher in a classical school, he became quite unset- 
tled in his plans. His recluse habits and peculiar 
style of preaching, the unconfirmed state of his own 
mind, and his loose opinion respecting church organi- 
zation, conspired to restrict his popularity and pre- 
vent his being called to eligible places. In reference 
to the disappointments of this period, and the uncer- 
tainties of his future course, he exclaims : " 'T is 
thus I am for ever repelled from every point of reli- 
gious confraternity, and doomed, still doomed, a mel- 
ancholy monad, a weeping solitaire. Oh, world ! 
how from thy every quarter blows -a gale, wintry, 
cold, and bleak, to the heart that would expand !" 

He devoted himself casually to literary pursuits, 
until in 1797 he resumed the pastoral relation at Chi- 
chester, After ministering to that church about two 
and a half years, in 1800 he removed to Downend, 
five miles from Bristol ; and thence, after a settlement 
of four years, through the recommendation of Robert 
Hall he was invited to become pastor of the baptist 
church at Frome. It was there in 1805, in the thir- 



OF JOHN FOSTER. H 

ty-fifth year of his age, that his essays made their ap- 
pearance, which, after several revisions through suc- 
cessive editions, have taken rank with the most pro- 
found works of English classical literature, passed 
through many editions on both sides of the water, 
and are still extending their circulation. 

His ministry having been suspended on account 
of a serious difficulty affecting his throat, in 1807 he 
became connected with the Eclectic Review, a peri- 
odical of the highest order, originated upon a com- 
promise between low-churchmen and dissenters, but 
subsequently, chiefly through Mr. Foster's influence, 
diverted from its impracticable position, and made 
the organ of the dissenters. After the removal of 
that difficulty he continued for many years in that 
connexion, acting in the twofold character of review- 
er and evangelist, and never again entered upon the 
pastoral relation, except after an interval of many 
years, in 1817, for a very short time at Downend, 
where he had before been settled. He, however, 
continued to preach as an evangelist in destitute lo- 
calities, when his health would permit, once and often 
twice a sabbath. At one time he speaks of embra- 
cing in his itinerating circuit fourteen different places 
of occasional appointment from five to twenty miles 
from Bourton. 

'* The sermons of Foster were of a cast quite dis- 
tinct from what is commonly called oratory, and, in- 
deed, from what many seem to account the highest 
style of eloquence, namely, a flow of facile thoughts 
through the smooth channels of uniforaily elevated, 
polished diction, graced by the utmost appliances of 
voice and gesture." He speaks thus of his preach- 



12 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

ing : " I preach, sometimes with great fertihty, some- 
times with extreme barremiess of mind ; insomuch 
that I am persuaded that no man hearing me in 
the different extremes, could, from my preaching, 
imagine it was the same speaker. I never write a 
line or a word of my sermons. There are some ad- 
vantages, both with respect to liberty and appear- 
ance, attendant on a perfect superiority to notes. 
Sunday evening (a very wet, uncomfortable night) I 
preached to about eighteen or twenty auditors the 
greatest sermon I ever made. It was from Rev. x. 
5,6: ' And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea 
and upon the earth, lifted up his hand to heaven, and 
sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, &c,, that 
there should be time no longer.' I always know 

when I speak well or the contrary The subject 

was grand ; and my imagination was in its most lu- 
minous habit." 

His relation to the Review continued with an in- 
terval of a few years till 1839. Through a course of 
one hundred and eighty-five articles (one hundred and 
seventy-eight furnished from A. D. 1807 to 1820, and 
seven from 1828 to 1839) are given his views of a 
vast variety of subjects, political, religious, scientific, 
and literary, comparing favorably with the produc- 
tions of the best British essayists. Sixty-one of the 
articles have been republished in London under the 
supervision of Dr. Price, the editor of the Eclectic 
Review, in two volumes octavo, from which selec- 
tions have been republished in this countiy by the 
Appletons, under the title of " Foster's Miscellanies." 

In 1808 he was married to Miss Maria Snookes, to 
whom he had been engaged for five years, and to 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 23 

whom his essays were addressed. In 1810 his only 
son was born, a youth of slow but much promise, 
who died at the age of seventeen years. 

After an interval of thirteen years devoted to his 
twofold avocation of reviewer and evangelist, he re- 
appeared before the pubHc as an author. In 1818, 
his discourse on Missw7is was delivered, and soon 
after elaborated, and published under the title of the 
" Glory of the Age'' (republished by James Loring, 
Boston), than which a more profound view of the 
magnitude, obligations, and encouragements of the 
missionary enterprise, has never appeared. 

His sermon on '' the evils of popular ignorance,'* 
before the British society for the promotion of popu- 
lar instruction, vi^as preached in ISIS ; and after be- 
ing enlarged and elaborated, was pubHshed in 1820, 
under the title, " The Philosophy of Popular Ignor- 
ance," and republished by James Loring, Boston. 
Sir James M'Intosh, it is said, pronounced this trea- 
tise one of the most able and profound works of the 
age; and Dr. J. Pye Smith says, "Popular and 
admired as it confessedly is, it has never met 
with a thousandth part of the attention which it de- 
serves." 

In 1821, he removed to Stapleton, three miles from 
Bristol, where he remained till his death. In 1822, 
by invitation of intelligent gentlemen of different de- 
nominations, he commenced a course of semi-month- 
ly lectures at Broadmead chapel, Bristol. After two 
years he declined continuing them on account of in- 
competent health, but finally after renewed soHcita- 
tions, consented to deliver monthly lectures which 
were terminated by the settlement of Robert Hall at 
2 



14 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

Broadmead, from a modest deference to the dis- 
tinguished abilities of that great man. These lec- 
tures have been published in two series, and a selec- 
tion from the first volume has been republished by 
the Appletons, Nev\^ York, under the title of " Es- 
says on Christian Morals." 

In 1825, his introduction to " Doddridge's Rise and 
Progress," &c., was published, unsurpassed in com- 
prehensiveness of view, cogency of reasoning, and 
earnestness of persuasion, by any of its class of wri- 
tings. It has also been issued in a separate volume 
and republished in this country. In 1832, his ob- 
servations on Hail as a preacher, appeared in Grego- 
ry's Memoir of Hall. 

Two hundred and thirty-nine letters of medium, or 
more than medium length, of his correspondence with 
friends and some distinguished individuals, have been 
preserved, and in connexion with selections from his 
journal and several articles published at different pe- 
riods, but not before embraced in any collection of 
his works, have been interwoven in the narrative of 
his life, edited by J. E. Ryland, and republished by 
Wiley and Putnam, New York. There is perhaps 
not a biography in the English language so philo- 
sophically arranged, that so fully and variously ex- 
hibits the character of its subject, and that comprises 
so much important truth, useful information, and 
beauty of sentiment. 

After having lost his wife in 1832, and one of his 
oldest and most intimate friends in 1833, he was 
quickened to more immediate apprehension of his 
own end, and with gradually increasing feebleness 
of body, and dimness of vision, but with unobscured 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 15 

intellect, he descended toward the grave ; and in 1843, 
in the seventy-third year of his age, he departed this 
life, leaving few^ near relatives, except two daughters, 
who affectionately ministered to his declining ao-e, and 
wept over the grave of their illustrious father. 

A writer in " Chambers's Edinburgh Journal" gives 
the following characteristic sketches of Foster : — 

" His only hobby was revealed by the first glance 
at his apartments. The choicest engravings met the 
eye in every direction, which, together with a profu- 
sion of costly-illustrated works, showed that if our 
hermit had in other respects left the world behind 
him, he had made a most self-indulgent resei*vation 
of the arts. 

" But the great curiosity of the house was a certain 
mysterious apartment, which was not entered by any 
but the recluse himself perhaps once in twenty years ; 
and if the recollection of the writer serves him, the 
prohibition must have extended in all its force to do- 
mestics of every class. This was the library. Many 
entreaties to be favored with the view of this seat of 
privacy had been silenced by allusions to the cave of 
Trophonius, and in one instance to Erebus itself, and 
by mock-solemn remonstrances, founded on the dan- 
ger of such enterprises to persons of weak nerves and 
fine sensibilities. At length Mr. Foster's consent Wcis 
obtained, and he led the way to his previously unin- 
vaded fastness — an event so unusual, as to have been 
mentioned in a letter which is published in the sec- 
ond volume of his * Life and Correspondence.* The 
floor was occupied by scattered garments, rusty fire- 
arms, and a hillock of ashes from the grate which 
might well be supposed to have been the accumulation 



16 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

of a winter, while that which ought to have been the 
writing-desk of the tenant was furnished with the 
blackened remains of three dead pens and a dry ink- 
stand by way of cenotaph. Around this grotesque 
miscellany was ranged one of the selectest private 
libraries in which it was ever the good luck of a bib- 
liomaniac to revel 

" His dress was uncouth, and neglected to the last 
degree. A long gray coat, almost of the fashion of a 
dressing-gown ; trowsers which seemed to have been 
cherished relics of his boyhood, and to have quarrelled 
with a pair of gaiters, an intervening inch or two of 
stocking indicating the disputed territory ; shoes whose 
solidity occasionally elicited from the wearer a refer- 
ence to the equipments of the ancient Israelites ; a 
colored silk handkerchief, loosely tied about his neck, 
and an antique waistcoat of most uncanonical hue — 
these, with an indescribable hat, completed the phi- 
losopher's costume. In his walks to and from the 
city of Bristol (the latter frequently by night) he availed 
himself at once of the support and protection of a for- 
midable club, which, owing to the difficulty with which 
a short dagger in the handle was released by a spring, 
he used jocosely to designate as a * member of the 
Peace Society.' .... 

" His was one of those countenances which it is 
impossible to forget. . . . His forehead was a triumph 
to the phrenologist, and surrounded as it was by a 
most uncultivated wig, might suggest the idea of a 
perpendicular rock crowned with straggling verdure ; 
while his calm but luminous eye, deeply planted be- 
neath his massive brow, might be compared to a lamp 
suspended in one of its caverns. In early life, his 



OP JOHN FOSTER. 17 

countenance must have been strikingly beautiful, his 
features being regular and commanding, and his com- 
plexion retaining to the last that fine but treacherous 
hue which indicated the malady that ended his life." 
and wept over the grave of their illustrious father. 

In the foregoing cursory view of Foster's life we 
have noticed little more than his external history. 
His higher life was internal ; its interest is traced in 
the workings of his mind. Let us contemplate more 
particularly his character and works. 

They are distinguished hy a grand comhination 
and supremacy of intellectual traits. In his child- 
hood thoughtful, silent, and shunning the companion- 
ship of unreflecting boys, he obtained from his sedate 
behavior, and intelligent observations upon characters 
and events, the appellation of "old-fashioned." While 
employed at spinning and weaving, he would steal 
away into the barn and study for a considerable time, 
and then by more rapid manipulations of the loom 
seek to make up the deficit of his task, and sometimes 
would study all night. 

"I turn," he says early in life, "disgusted and con- 
temptuous from insipid and shallow folly, to lave in 
the stream, the tide of deeper sentiments. There I 
swim, and dive, and rise, and gambol, with all that 
wild delight which would be felt by a fish after pant- 
ing out of its element awhile, when flung into its own 
world of waters by some friendly hand." He was 
disgusted with everything superficial and common- 
place, and wished to put a new face upon every sub- 
ject by a fuller and more philosophical exhibition of 
it. He speaks of a preacher "whose discourse is 
good but attenuated ; he has a clue of thread of gold 
2* 



18 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

in his hand which he unwinds for you ell after ell ; but 
give me the man who will throw the clue at me at 
once and let me unwind it ; and then show in his 
hand another ready to follow." 

He regarded the material of which most books are 
made, as pages of " vulgar truisms, and candle-light 
sense, which any one is competent to write, and no 
one interested to read ; . . . a mere common of litera- 
ture; a space wide enough, of indifferent production, 
and open to all. The pages of some authors on the 
contrary give us the idea of enclosed gardens and 
orchards, and one says, hah! that is the man's own." 

An earnest, inquisitive and penetrating thought- 
fulness seemed to increase with his years. His think- 
ing was with effort. He says on one occasion, " Af- 
ter reading an hour or two in Shakspere, with as- 
tonishment at the incomjDarable accuracy, and as it 
were tangible relief of all his images, I have walk- 
ed an hour or two more in the act of trying to take 
on my mind the most perfect perception possible, 
of all the surrounding objects and circumstances — 
found, and have very often, that set, laborious atten- 
tion is absolutely necessary to this. I take no images 
completely — insensibly, involuntarily, and uncon- 
sciously." The effort of elaborating thoughts he called 
" pumping ;" and he walked during the exercise, or 
kept an involuntary motion of the body, correspond- 
ing with the throes of the mind. His mind was a 
workshop, not a window. He says on one occasion, 
" I have labored to think till I can not form one sim- 
ple idea ; I seem to have no more mind than the ink- 
stand." 

He thought with system as well as laboriously, and 



OP JOHN FOSTER. 19 

availed himself of passing occurrences, and casual 
mental excitements, for the illustration and elabora- 
tion of his views of some subject that had been long 
revolved in the ocean of his mind, like a pebble pol- 
ished by the action of the sea. The mental activity 
of the world is to a great extent without purpose or 
concentration. It is like the surplus power of steam 
escaping from the blowpipe in noisy but aimless en- 
ergy. Scarcely a fraction of the mental excitement, 
the motive power of thought, is turned upon the stu- 
pendous enginery of the intellectual world, to advance 
truth and human improvement. Inferior minds dis- 
sipate their existence in idle reveries, and casual un- 
directed action ; while many superior minds not 
availing themselves of occasions of reflection, or ex- 
hausting their strength in intellectual vagrancy, or 
in aimless activity beating the air, accomplish but 
little. 

In his industrious and systematic thoughtfulness 
and his susceptibility to impressions from surround- 
ing objects, Foster's mind was like a lens, converging 
the scattered rays of the light of daily observation 
upon whatever subject he was contemplating, till it 
was invested with all the intense interest and glow- 
ing brilliancy of his own imagination. Such a mind 
derives more truth from a limited range of facts and 
reading, than others from a much wider range. As 
the diffused heat of the tomd zone does not kindle 
the most combustible matter ; while that of a north- 
ern sun concentrated in rays of light through a well- 
constructed lens will ignite almost any body, Foster's 
mind could avail itself of the materials and combine 
the elements of thought, and as "a focus concentrate 



20 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

into one ardent beam the languid lights and fires of 
ten thousand surrounding minds." 

He was a rema^-liahly jyrofound thinker. His mind 
was a fathoming line which he perpetually employed 
in penetrating the depths of nature, and fetching up 
the purest gems of truth and sentiment. Diving to 
those profundities seemed easy to him, and he could 
extend the search to places far beyond the reach of 
most even distinguished intellects. 

Superficial thinkers leave the impression that they 
have expressed all they felt; their words, adequate 
expressions of their thoughts, restrict our views. 
Even with indifferent attention we comprehend at 
least all their meaning, and take in the entire range 
of their vision. Not so with a profound thinker. 
There is an indefinite vastness in the range of his vis- 
ion ; and his words are only guides directing the 
mind in pursuit, through the immensity of thought. 
The mental vision strikes not against the barrier of 
language as a dead limit, but is guided by it as by a 
series of way marks that constitute in their adjusted 
collocation a vista opening to the distance of the re- 
gion of ultimate truth. 

To the generality of readers, depth of thoiight is 
confounded with confusion of thous^ht. Events and 
ideas heaped and hurdled together, and lit up here 
and there with flashes of wit and imagination, are 
often received in their chaotic state as indications of 
greater mental power than they would be, if reduced 
to order, and connexion, by the strongest exercise of 
a patient, penetrating, and comprehensive intellect. 
Pre-eminence of understanding, however, is exhibited 
in so grappling with a subject as to educe simplicity 



OP JOHN FOSTER. 21 

from complexity, order from confusion. In Foster's 
mind a subject is at once resolved into all its con- 
stituent parts, seen in its various relations, and so 
presented. His genius restrained itself from wan 
dering beyond the daylight of clear sense, amid the 
shining mists of what his own phrase may designate, 
as " subtlety attenuated into inanity." He had the 
clearest idea of what he intended to unfold, and nev- 
er lost himself and others in metaphysical subtleties 
and shapeless imaginings. He never was satisfied 
with dim and shadowy views of a subject. He con- 
tinued to pore over it, like a man contemplating a 
landscape dimly seen in its outline and prominent 
points through the morning mists — gazing at every 
aspect, renewing the most inquisitive and penetrating 
glances, and continuing observant watchfulness till 
the mists disappeared, and the subject in all its ex- 
tent, relations, and beauties, was revealed to the sat- 
isfied and enraptured mind. His exhibition was 
luminous like the daylight — that simple clearness 
which makes things conspicuous and does not make 
them glare — which adds no color or form but purely 
makes visible in perfection, the real color and form 
of all things around. If there remained an unknown 
side of the subject, or aspect of the thought, it was 
because the subject itself lay beyond the survey and 
investigation of the human intellect, and not because 
his conception was partial, dim, or shadowy. Tlie 
fulness of conception possible to the human mind is 
attained before the partial is described. Some j)as- 
sages are obscure because the sentiment is recondite — 
the subject difficult, and no form of words can make it 
plain to a reader who has not analogous ideas. 



22 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

Though not much read in systems of science and 
philosophy, he had a deep insight into their ultimate 
principles, all that made them valuable. Obtaining 
an intense appreciation and comprehensive view of 
every subject he approached, his thoughts reached 
to the utmost discriminating and pointed individuali- 
ties : as in a good portrait you identify not merely 
the race, or a class, but also an individual; or a,s in a 
true painting in botany you distinguish not merely 
a species of plants, but a particular flower with its pe- 
culiar stamen , petal, and color. His analysis was ul- 
timate ; he stripped every fibre from every thought. 
" His logic was not subtlety, but the faculty of keen, 
clear insight, without the rambling of a thought ; and 
of rigid severe expression without the waste of a 
word ;" preserving accurately the relations and se- 
quence of truths. You can not reverse the order of 
topics, propositions, paragraphs, or even sentences, 
without impairing the force, or obscuring the sense of 
an article. His elaborate writings manifest a linked 
consecutiveness of thought, and in the succession, cli 
mactic order, and concentrated force of logic, reach 
their conclusion without the ostentation of major or 
minor premises, or formal annunciation and inferences, 
as a cannon-ball strikes its mark, evincing in the re- 
sult the certainty of the aim, and the directness of the 
progress though its path is not visibly distinguished. 

We can hardly conceive of an intellectual pursuit 
or achievement to which his mind was inadequate. 
He could have excelled in mathematics; could have 
become one of the most gorgeous and thoughtful of 
poets ; or have written the '* analogy of religion." 
He sometimes equals or surpasses the tersest strength 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 23 

of Butler, Clark, oi' Barrow ; and some of his pas- 
sages rival the sublimity and gorgeousness of the most 
remarkable lines of the *' Paradise Lost." Other 
writers may have exhibited more of brilliancy, of 
novelty and luxuriance of imagery, more sudden flash- 
es, points, and surprises of thought, and more mag- 
nificence of language. If his fancy is not so exu- 
berant as Jeremy Taylor's, Coleridge's, or Wilson's, 
his imagination is more ardent and powerful. It bore 
its flaming torch into the enormous shadow of every 
grand mystery of nature, providence, and revelation. 
He seemed ever to be hovering in his discursive and 
intrepid fancy, inquisitive observation, and penetra- 
ting inquiry, on the co'nfines o? the spiritual world — 
the infinite unknoivn, where Gabriel might stand 
abashed and confounded. In his restless inquiry af- 
ter the unknown and the future, a late writer has said, 
there is some such difference between him and other 
distinguished men, as the poet describes between 
"Michael, ascending with Adam the mountain to tell 
him what shall happen from his fall, and Raphael the 
sociable angel, relating to him in his bower, the his- 
tory of the creation." You are overawed by the 
majesty, or dazzled by the splendor of his conceptions. 
Your course lies along a lofty range rising over the 
level of common minds, and carrying you to the high- 
est elevations of thought ; winding amid varied sub- 
limities — beside snowy summits, whose suspended 
avalanches overhang the way, or yawning gulfs whose 
frightful chasms might be supposed to echo the wail 
of lost spirits ; and is interspersed with varying scenes 
of the beautiful, the picturesque, and the grand, break- 
ing upon the view with suddenness and surprise. 



S4 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

A reviewer* has said that in comjoarison with Hall 
the mind of the latter is more like a royal garden, 
with rich fruits and overhanging trees and vistas ; 
that of the former like a stern, wild, mountain region 
likely to be the haunt of banditti. The mind of the 
latter is more like an inland lake in which you can 
see, though many fathoms deep, the clear white sand 
and the small pebbles on the bottom ; that of the 
former like the Black sea in commotion. 

Another distinguishing feature of his character and 
writings tvas a deep love of Nature, and an exquisite 
appreciation of the beauties of natural scenery. He 
says: "Sweet Nature! I have conversed with her 
with inexpressible luxury ; I have almost worshipped 
her. A flower, a tree, a bird, a fly, has been enough 
to kindle the mind to sublime conceptions. When 
the autumn stole on, I observed it with the most vigi- 
lant attention, and felt a pensive regret to see those 
forms of beauty, which tell that all the beauty is go- 
ing soon to depart," The very words woods ^.nd. for- 
ests would produce the most powerful emotion. " In 
matters of taste, the great interested him, even more 
than the beautiful, in nature or in human character. 
Great rocks, vast trees and forests, dreary caverns, 
volcanoes, cataracts, tempests, and great heroic deeds 
of men, were the objects of the highest enthusiasm." 
On one occasion he left his house and walked a con- 
siderable distance in a drenching rain, to observe a 
waterfall, while the torrent was swelling above, and 
precipitating with increasing volume and force, and 
louder roar, from the rocks. 

During a visit to the localities about Snowden, he 

* Dr. Chpever. 



OP JOHN FOSTER. 25 

ascended that imperial eminence at midnight, and 
saw the lising of the sun from its summit. On an- 
other occasion he persuaded a friend to walk with 
him all night by the river-side, to observe how the 
light at its first approach affected the surrounding 
scenery. And in reference to such observations he 
subsequently remarks : " It is difficult to trace the 
precise steps of the gradation by which, after the sun 
is set, the evening changes into night. The appear- 
ances in the progress of the morning are somewhat 
more palpable." A friend says : " I have known him 
linger by a huge ancient tree in the park of Longleat, 
still reluctant to quit the spot, and as if half ready to 
take root near its giant trunk. A much- valued friend, 
a lady with whom he visited many beautiful spots in 
pur neighborhood, speaks of the difficulty with which 
he was persuaded to quit the top of * Alfred's Tower,' 
at Stourhead, where the panoramic prospect riveted 
him. In the same mood he would gaze untiringly on 
a waterfall, or the rushing of a rapid stream." 

From this early and prominent taste he was always 
specially interested in books of travel ; and he read 
with interest and eagerness everything he could ob- 
tain relating to sti'ange objects and adventures in 
distant regions, and confidently and almost enthusi- 
astically anticipated that he himself should become 
a travelling adventurer, and see almost all the won- 
derful places and spectacles of which he had read. 
And in advanced life he said, " It often occurs to me 
when thinking of, and regretting not being permitted 
to see the striking scenes of this globe, how soon I 
shall be summoned to see things inexpressibly more 
striking and awful in the unknown world to which 



26 "* CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

departing spirits will take their flight." He studied 
Nature as a stupendous monument of the Deity, in- 
scribed all over with hieroglyphical revelations of his 
character which he was intent to decipher. He saw a 
spiritual meaning, a mysticism in the works of God, 
that kept him in awe and worship . " It appears," says 
our author, " that all things in the creation are marked 
with some kind of characters which attention may 
decipher into truth ; pervaded by some kind of ele- 
ment which thought may draw out into instruction." 
He severely rebuked in himself all inattention when 
there was an opportunity for observation — saying 
once, " I am not observing, I am only seeing, for the 
beam of my eye is not charged with thought." On 
another occasion he says : " I am endeavoring, wher- 
ever I am, to examine every object with the keenest 
investigation, conscious that this is the best method 
for obtaining knowledge fresh and original. It was 
by this method that Dr. Johnson was empowered to 
display human characters in his * Rambler,' and Thom- 
son to describe Nature in his * Seasons.' It is impos- 
sible to adapt many kinds of instruction with precis- 
ion, without that minute and uncommon knowledge 
which observation alone can supply." 

This taste gave a character and coloring to all his 
writings. " I have taken," he again says, " many soli- 
tary walks, and with a book and pencil in my hand 
have done my best to catch all the ideas, images, ob- 
jects, aud reflections, that the most beautiful aspects 
and scenes of nature could supply. In company, I 
can not actually take this book and pencil, but I en- 
deavor to seize fast every remarkable circumstance, 
and each disclosure of character that I witness; and 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 27 

then when I return to my room, these go by dozens 
into my book." — "Observations on facts and of the 
living world have perhaps on some subjects given me 
the feeling of having better materials for forming opin- 
ions than books could supply." Gathered from fields 
and gardens — common and extraordinary scenes of 
life — his thoughts are not like those of so many of 
the profoundest thinkers, who seem to have medita- 
ted only in the study, and ruminated only over books, 
— mere abstractions. They are embodiments and 
illustrations of truth which are obvious to all, and 
palpably related to the reason and obsei-vation of 
mankind. 

Truths are sketched as associated in nature. In- 
stead of an anatomical figure merely — an object of 
speculation for the curious — we have the same ex- 
quisite structure clothed in the useful forms and come- 
ly aspects of human muscles, expression, action, and 
beauty. Instead of the flower distributed and clas- 
sified in all its parts in a book of botany, useful for 
scientific investigation at some times and to some in- 
dividuals, it is the flower blooming in the garden on 
a bed of roses, invested with its natural relations, re- 
galing the taste of all by its beauty and fragi-ance. 
In his writings, to an almost unequalled degree, 
strength is adorned with beauty, and the profound is 
made obvious and interesting to common minds. Ob- 
serving so carefully, generahzing so justly, and ex- 
pressing or illustrating thought so much by allusion 
to the known and familiar, he leads us with more 
distinct views, and more influential convictions, into 
the walks of philosophy, and the paradise of senti- 



28 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

ment that environs them, than ahnost any wiiter of 
the age. 

Of other intellectual qualities we will only observe, 
though he possessed the soul of wit, he generally re- 
pressed its lighter forms and verbal expressions. He 
once called the world " * an untamed and untamable 
animal ;' and on being reminded that he was a part 
of it, and therefore had an interest in its welfare, re- 
joined, ' Yes, sir, a hair upon the tail.' On insinceri- 
ty, affectation, and cant, he was unsparingly sarcas- 
tic. Some years ago, the emperor Alexander's piety 
was a favorite theme at public meetings. A person 
who received the statements on this point with (as 
Foster thought) a far too easy faith, remarked to him 
that really the emperor must be a very good man ! 
* Yes, sir,' he replied gravely, but with a significant 
glance, *a very good man — very devout: no doubt 
he said grace before he swallowed Poland !' " 

This quality of his mind is developed in that deep 
vein of sarcasm that runs through a considerable por- 
tion of his writings ; not replete with extravagances 
and expressions of spleen — not forced and vulgar — - 
but easy and dignified. His eloquence is not the re- 
sult of managing ingenuity, ostentation of learning, 
and pompous phrase, that so often freezes feeling 
even amid elevation of thought and brilliant senti- 
ment. The pure force of sense, of plain, downright 
sense, was so great as to reach the elevation of elo- 
quence, even without the aid of a happy image or 
brilliant explosion. But superlative intellect — the 
gi'and distinction of his writings — is adorned with 
imagery ; and there is a fulness of sentiment and emo- 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 29 

tion, of simple and energetic feeling, that rises and 
glows in the most fervid and sublime eloquence. 

Passing from the intellectual to the literary char- 
acter of Foster^ s writings — from the originality y com- 
pass, and heauty of his thoughts, to the manner of 
their emhodiment and illustration in language — it is 
obvious that no productions in the English language 
have been composed with more care — more of the 
''labor limge," than his graver works. He says, 
when approaching a literary project, " I linger hours 
and hours often, before I can resolutely set about it ; 
and days and weeks, if it is some task more than or- 
dinary." — ''What an effort to reduce the wide, re- 
mote, and shadowy elements of thought, to what I 
am willing to believe is definite expression !" — " No 
language I can easily find would exaggerate my most 
real, sincere, and habitual horror of the implements 
of writing. I literally never wrote a letter, or a page, 
or paragraph for printing, without an effort which I 
felt a pointed repugnance to make." — "I honestly 
believe I have never, at any one time, written the 
amount of a single page (of course, not including let- 
ters), without a painfully-repugnant sense of toil; 
such a sense of it as always far more than to overbal- 
ance any sense of pleasure ; and such as, in ninety- 
nine cases out of a hundred, quite to annihilate any 
such feeling of pleasure." He speaks of spending 
on each of the Broadmead semi-monthly lectures as 
much labor perhaps as it is usual to bestow on the 
five or six sermons exacted in the fortnight of a 
preacher's life. In preparation for a literary task he 
speaks of going about " reading, comparing, select- 



30 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

ing, digesting, trying to condense, with such an 
amount of still unsatisfactory labor as no one can 
imagine." He speaks of never being able to elabo- 
rate anything near so much as one printed page per 
day ; and of never writing so much as one such page 
of composition without feeling faint and sick. " My 
knees have literally trembled uilder me all this day 
in consequence of rather a hard effort during part of 
the preceding day." He was haunted with something 
like a sense of duty to continue writing, while his 
aversion to the employment was increasing, and his 
execution became slower and more laborious. 

This intense mental exertion arose from superior 
strength of mind, challenged and directed by an ex- 
quisitely delicate taste. That he could have written 
a score of volumes of higher intellectual order than 
nine tenths of the approved English literature, no one 
will doubt who has read any portion of his desultory 
correspondence. The difference between the elabo- 
rate and more hasty works of genius is no more ap- 
preciated by the multitude than the difference be- 
tween the chef d' CBUvre wci^ a.n inferior production of 
art. They judge of the artist by the number of his 
paintings, the yards of canvass he has used, and the 
freedom, boldness, and glare of his coloring ; while 
all the vast outlay of thought and laborious execu- 
tion, after the rough draught of a few days, reaching 
to the limit of months and perhaps of years, is lost 
upon them. So the mass of readers admire little more 
Pope's " Essay on Man," Gray's " Elegy," and But- 
ler's " Analogy," than certain smart, free productions, 
that will be forgotten with their authors, and the pa- 
tronage that gave them character. 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 31 

The labor of genius in proportion as it is expend- 
ed upon exquisite adjustment and extreme elabora- 
tion, rises above common appreciation. " How of- 
ten," says Foster, " I have spent the whole day in 
adjusting two or three sentences, amid a perplexity 
about niceties, which would be far too impalpable to 
be even comprehended, if one were to state them, 
by the greatest number of readers ! Neither is the 
reader aware how often, after this has been done, the 
sentences or paragraphs so adjusted were, after sev- 
eral hours' deliberation the next day, all blotted out." 
In this intense mental exertion he was not engaged 
in aimless pursuit, or beating the air, but advancing 
his productions by perceptible steps farther toward 
perfection, whose beau-ideal beckoned him forward, 
and cheered his toil. 

One point particularly aimed at in this laborious 
manner oj^ composition was to preserve a " special truth 
and consistency in all language involvi7ig figure ;''^ 
and to prune away all superfluity of image, which ra- 
ther displayed the ingenuity and fertility of the au- 
thor^s mind, than his subject. In pursuing a main 
object, many writers, perhaps because it is not con- 
ceived with sufficient distinctness to repress and cast 
into shade other collateral thoughts, introduce a mul- 
tifarious assemblage of ideas, pleasing in themselves, 
and distantly connected with the subject ; yet, by re- 
moteness of bearing, or from their mere number, di- 
vert the mind from the main point, confuse its per- 
ceptions, and weaken its convictions of tiTith. 

Now, though Foster possessed an imagination 
whose electric flashes could illumine and invest ev- 
ery subject with its primary and secondary associa- 



32 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

tions, and whose power could summon the most sud- 
den and happy combinations of thought and pleasing 
or forcible images from the loftiest or the lowest re- 
gion — paradise or the kennel — that imagination was 
so obedient to his judgment, that he repressed all 
collateral ideas and images that might dazzle but di- 
vert the attention from the great purpose in hand. 
The beauties of imagery, he says, " when introduced 
with a copiousness greatly beyond the strictest ne- 
cessities of explanation, should be so managed as to 
be like flowery borders of a road : the way may have 
on each side every variety of beauty, every charm of 
shape, and hue, and scent, to regale the traveller; 
but it should still be absolutely a road, going right on 
with defined and near limits, and not widening out 
into a spacious and intricate wilderness of these beau- 
ties, where the man that was to travel is seduced to 
wander." It is a fault opposed to his views and prac- 
tice of simplicity, that Foster points out so graphically 
in Coleridge's writings : *' Our author too much am- 
plifies his figurative illustrations. He does it some- 
times in the way of merely perfecting, for the sake 
of its own completeness, the representation of the 
thing which furnishes the figure, which is often done 
equally with philosophical accuracy and poetic beau- 
ty. But thus extended into particularity, the illus- 
tration exhibits a number of colors, and combinations, 
and branchings of imagery, neither needful nor useful 
to the main intellectual purpose. Our author is there- 
fore sometimes like a man, who, in a work that re- 
quires the use of wood, but requires it only in the 
plain, bare form of straight poles and, stakes, should 
insist that it shall be living wood, retaining all its 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 33 

twigs, leaves, and blossoms. Or if we might com- 
pare the series of ideas in a composition to a military 
line, we should say that many of our author's images 
and even his abstract conceptions are so supernume- 
rarily attended by so many related but secondary and 
subordinate ideas, that the array of thought bears 
some resemblance to what that military line would 
be, if many of the men, veritable and brave soldiers 
all the while, stood in the ranks surrounded by their 
wives and children." 

By repressing multiplicity of secondary though re- 
lated and beautiful imagery, the purpose of the au- 
thor is revealed in more distinctness ; as the main 
features of a painting are exhibited in bolder relief 
by the studied repression of glaring color and divert- 
ing figure ; as a mountain-range seems more eleva- 
ted where the descent to the plain is not by a grada- 
tion of spurs and hills ; or a single summit appears 
more grand and imposing when not immediately sur- 
rounded by rival peaks. Foster regarded ornament 
wholly secondary and subordinate, and even sacri- 
ficed it to terseness of style. He studiously avoided 
multiplicity of beautiful allusions and figures upon 
the subordinate ideas or branches of the subject, and 
reserved the interest glowing through so many parts 
to blaze out in concentrated radiance at the great 
points of thought. 

The intense labor of composition was also directed 
to the selection and collocation of words and sentences^ 
as well as to chastening figurative illustration. One 
rule he observed was the use of the plainest words 
that could express the sense. He always preferred 
the simple verbs is^ doesy makes^ to compound or 



34 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

more formal words, when they would express the 
sense as well, as one of the chief secrets of simple 
writing. In the criticism of a friend's article for pub- 
lication, "harmless" was substituted for "innocuous." 
Recognising the superior significancy and force of Sax- 
on over Latin terms, he would say, " Well-being 
arises from well-doing," rather than " Felicity attends 
virtue." 

With his delicate taste, this work was indefinite — 
infinite. After the first toilsome elaboration of the 
essays, and the numerous alterations of subsequent 
editions, he made not less than a thousand alterations 
in the last revision many years after. " I dare say I 
could point out scores of sentences each one of which 
has cost me several lioiirs of the utmost exertion of 
my mind to put it in the state in which it now stands, 
after putting it in several other forms, to each one of 
which I saw some precise objection, which I could, 
at the time, have very distinctly assigned. And in 
truth, there are hundreds of them to which I could 
make objections as they noio stand, but I did not 
know how to hammer them into a better form." — 
** The revision and correction cost me, 1 really be- 
lieve, as much labor as the whole previous composi- 
tion, though composition is a task in which I am mis- 
erably slow." — " My principle of proceeding was to 
treat no page, sentence, or word, with the smallest 
ceremony ; but to hack, split, twist, prune, pull up by 
the roots, or practise any other severity on whatever 
I did not like." — " It is amazing what trouble it is 
to reconstruct, in an amended form, a single sentence, 
when it includes several ideas, when you have to take 
care of the juncture with what precedes and follows, 



OP JOHN FOSTER. 35 

and when you are resolved it shall be but one sen- 
tence, in whatever form it may be put." 

He speaks of the difficulty of " finding proper 
words and putting them in proper places." As few 
words are in truth synonymous, he aimed at that 
ideal perfection in the use of language, " in which 
every conception should be so discriminative and pre- 
cise, that no two words which have the most refined 
shade of difference in their meaning should be equally 
eligible to express that conception." As the result 
of such inveterate labor and ciiticism, his style is re- 
duced with the greatest precision to the form and 
expression of his thought, "which appear not so 
much made for the thought as made hy it, and often 
give, if we may so express it, the very color as well 
as the substantial form of the idea." — " The diction 
lies, if we may so speak, close to the mental surface, 
with all its irregularities, throughout. It is therefore 
perpetually varying, in perfect flexibility and obse- 
quiousness to the ideas ; being moulded to their very 
shape, with an almost perfect independence and avoid- 
ance of all set and artificial forms of expression ;" as 
a thin soil in a mountainous region sinking into the 
depressions, and rising to the elevations, reveals all 
the prominences of the rocky strata in native rug- 
gedness. 

In the use of qualifying words, his discriminating 
taste and power of analysis appear almost unrivalled. 
They do not merely fill out the bulky dimensions 
of style, but are informed with a nice perception 
of the qualities designated. No word could be 
spared, or scarcely superseded by another, without 
manifest vaiiation or reduction of meaning, or aspect 



36 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

of the thought. His style is distinguished for full- 
ness, particularity, and pointedness of expression. 
Speaking of the evasion of serious reflection — an 
avoidance of all the avenues of religious thought, 
and especially those conducting to the Supreme Be- 
ing — he inquires "by what dexterity of irreligious 
caution" this is done. Now, to many minds, the 
thought would have seemed adequately expressed 
without either qualifying word ; to most, it would 
have appeared full with one ; while its completeness 
is given by his own sentence. This distinguishing fea- 
ture of Foster's writings was hinted at in the " Brit- 
ish Review," in the notice of the essays at their first 
appearance, in the terms " exquisite precision of lan- 
guage." In a letter to Hughes with an apology, he 
alludes to this studied peculiarity of style. " I see a 
recognition of that which I consider as the advanta- 
geous peculiarity of my diction : namely, if I may use 
such a phrase, its verity to the ideas — its being com- 
posed of words and constructions merely and direct- 
ly fitted to the thoughts, with a perfect disregard of 
any general model, and a rejection of all the set and 
artificial formalities of phraseology in use, even among 
good writers : I may add, a special truth and consis- 
tency in all language involving figure.^'' And what 
he said of one of the most eminent writers of the last 
century, is true of himself: " You can not alter his 
diction ; it is not an artificial fold which may be taken 
off, and another superinduced on the mass of his 
thoughts. His language is identical with his thought ; 
the thought lives through every article of it. If you 
cut, you wound. His diction is not the clothing of 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 37 

his sentiments — it is the skin; and to alter the lan- 
guage would be to flay the sentiments alive." 

In the great effort to compress his style, he often 
employed long sentences ; believing, contrary to the 
vulgar notion that length of sentences, instead of al- 
ways convicting an author of diffuseness, furnishes a 
capital means of being concise — that "in fact, who- 
ever is determined on the greatest possible parsimony 
of words, must write in long sentences, if there is 
anything like combination in his thoughts. For, in 
a long sentence, several indispensable conditionali- 
ties, collateral notices, and qualifying or connecting 
circumstances, may be expressed by short members 
of the sentence, which must else be put in so many 
separate sentences ; thus making two pages of short 
sentences to express, and in a much less connected 
manner, what one well-constructed long sentence 
would have expressed in half a page : and yet an 
unthinking reader might very possibly cite these two 
pages as a specimen of concise writing, and such a 
half page as a sample of diffuseness." 

Hence some professional and superficial critics, 
who would praise the graceful periods of elegant 
commonplace writers, have vented their spiteful crit- 
icism, imhecile teluni, upon Foster's heavy, awkward, 
cumbersome style. The apparent fault is wholly 
owing to the number and variety of ideas clustered 
within a narrow compass. It may be easy to dis- 
tribute a few articles of furniture in a given room ; 
but as the number to be arranged is increased, the 
difficulty increases, and questions of taste multiply. 
So questions of criticism multiply with compactness 
of style and the number of distinct ideas and images. 
4 



38 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

Thought attenuated through elegant sentences, col- 
lated by an effort of memory and tasteful criticism, 
may be varied into an indefinite number of precise 
and differing modes of expression, without marring 
the beauty, reducing the compass, impairing the force, 
or distorting the form of the thought. But a con- 
nexion of sentences rigid with informed thoughts can 
not be varied and readjusted in its form as a " will-o'- 
the-wisp," a wreath of flowers, or the furbelow on a 
lady's bonnet. Foster's is not a lady's style, of re- 
finement polished to feebleness, prim and fastidious 
in the measure of sentences and turn of periods ; but 
it is developed in a masculine strength. " It is like 
the statue of Laocoon writhing against the serpent; 
or it reminds you of a naked athletic wrestler strug- 
gling to throw his adversary, all the veins and mus- 
cles starting out in the effort." 

Robert Hall said of his writings, " They are like a 
great lumber-wagon loaded with gold." A Rocka- 
way carriage is not constructed to transport heavy 
goods and wares, but for the indulgence and diver- 
sion of hours of leisure and amusement. A vehicle 
of light thought and fancies, to divert the listless and 
the unthinking, may be beautiful ; a vehicle for pro- 
found thought may be chaste, but will be character- 
ized chiefly by the beauty of strength. Over an even 
tenor of commonplace thought it is easy to grade a 
beautiful and undulating surface of language ; but 
the bold prominences of original ideas are likely to 
be developed in constructions liable to the censure 
of the critics who find their standard and rules in the 
works of elegant and superficial writers. 

Nearly allied with this precision in the use of words 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 39 

and the collocation of sentences, is the arrangement of 
the periods, and the consecutive and compact order of 
the thoughts, of paragraphs, and sections. As he 
says of Jeremy Taylor: "You shall find him pre- 
serve a strict connexion through a whole folio page ; 
a sentence shall be a complete thought, but it shall, 
at the same time, be an integral and inseparable por- 
tion of — not an accumulation, but a combination, of 
— thoughts, which are assisting one another by a 
linked and concentaneous action to prove or illustrate 
some one truth. The figure is much less than suffi- 
ciently strict, if I say, that there is one long, identical 
rope, and that every thought, however richly dressed, 
is placed close behind its fellow, and giving a stout 
pull." The thoughts and sentences are formed into 
a proper series and sequence. The sense is carried 
on in a train of finished sentences, each advancing 
one distinct step straight forward, not dispei'sed into 
a multitude of small pieces on either hand. It ad- 
vances, if we may so express it, in a strong narrow 
column, one thought treading closely and firmly after 
another, and not hurrying irregularly forward almost 
parallel to one another. 

In this compactness of structure he manifestly sur- 
passes all his illustrious cotemporaries. Chalmers 
presents one splendid view after another of a subject, 
or aspect of a thought, slightly varying as a series of 
separate diagrams; and by the repetition and am- 
plification, leaves perhaps a fuller and more vivid 
impression upon more obtuse or inattentive minds. 
Foster with greater economy of space and language, 
by unsparing and tasteful criticism, reduces all the 
different aspect of the subject to one rich, elaborate 



40 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

and comprehensive panoramic view. The style of the 
latter is the higher attainment of genius; as the 
comprehension of the picture of life, or the course 
of empire in a limited and connected series of paint- 
info's is a greater effort of genius than a picture ex- 
hibiting the portraiture of a single individual, or 
landscape, or aspect of society. There are passages in 
Foster's writings unsurpassed, if equalled in strength 
and comprehensiveness of thought, beauty of lan- 
guage and imagery, and compactness of style and 
arrangement, by those of any writer of his age. 

Mr. Foster was also distinguished hy som.e marked 
social and moral traits, that gave direction to his 
jpuhlic life, and have manifested themselves in the 
character and injitience of his writings. He was sub- 
ject to a constitutional pensiveness of mind that at 
times, especially in early life, induced a recoil from 
human beings, into cold retirement ; " and to a timid- 
ity that amounted to infinite shyness." He sought 
habitually seclusion where he might feel as if " dis- 
sociated from the whole creation." He says on one 
occasion : " I know scarcely any man by whose 
taking my arm in walking along I should be cordially 
gratified, and not very many ivojnenJ' Again he says : 
*' I feel this insuperable individuality. Something 
seems to say, * Come, come away; I am but a gloomy 
ghost among the living and the happy. There is no 
need of me ; I shall never be loved as I wish to be 
loved, and as I could love. I will converse with my 
friends in solitude ; then they seem to be within my 
soul ; when I am with them they seem to be without 
it. They do not need the new felicities I could im- 



OP JOHN FOSTER. 41 

part ; it is not generous to tax their sympathies with 
my sorrows; and these sorrows have an aspect on 
myself which no other person can see. I can never 
become deeply important to any one ; and the un- 
successful effort to become so costs too much, in the 
painful sentiment which the affections feel when they 
return mortified from the fervent attempt to give 
themselves to some heart which would welcome them 
with a pathetic warmth.' " 

On another occasion he speaks of having " relapsed 
into the solitaire feeling ; must be a monad. A trivial 
circumstance brought up the feeling that thus changed 
the current of the heart. That feeling was not of 
either altered opinions or diminished affection, but a 
self-originating, sad, and retiring sentiment, which 
seemed to say, * No heart will receive me, no heart 
needs me.' " The following entries are found in his 
journal on the same subject, in the vestry of Bat- 
tersea meeting, during evening service : " Most em- 
phatic feeling of my individuality — my insulated ex- 
istence — except that close and interminable con- 
nexion, from the very necessity of existence, with the 
Deity. To the continent of Human Nature, I am a 
small island near its coast ; to the Divine existence, 
I am a s,mdX\ peninsula.'' — " While Mr.D. was read- 
ing a chapter this morning, I had a deep feeling of 
disliking all social exercises, unless it could be with 
an individual or two with whom I could feel an en- 
tire reciprocation of soul. This was a feeling of 
individuality, not of impiety ; and how often I have 
experienced it, even in the presence of worthy 
people ; a feeling as if I could wish to vanish out 
of the room, and find myself walking in some lonely 
4* 



42 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

wood." This reserve was so remarkable, that he 
could have wished the funeral of his wife attended 
at midnight, to preclude the annoying gaze of every 
indifferent or curious spectator; and he requested as 
a favor that the officiating clergyman might not dis- 
tinguish him individually before the assembly by allu- 
sions in his address or prayers. 

This constitutional tendency to seclusion, kept him 
to a great extent from active alliance with public in- 
stitutions ; or any considerable personal association 
or co-operation with the distinguished philanthropists 
or Christians of his time. The influence of his co- 
temporary and friend Hughes, the representative of 
a large class of eminent Christians, was felt upon the 
age in his immediate personal co-operation with other 
individuals and public institutions, and was merged 
and lost as to individuality in the great stream of 
beneficence and philanthropy. Foster's on the other 
hand was developed in the seclusion of a more pii- 
vate life, dissociated from others, and it may be 
traced longer and with more evident marks of inde- 
pendence and individuality. The influence of the 
former, has been reproduced in thousands, incited 
by personal intercourse and example to a religious 
life and noble deeds ; that of the latter, by the direct 
communications of his genius, addressed to those 
who had never listened to his words, or marked his 
example. 

But the element of Ms character lohich has chiefly 
determined the impression and injiuence of his writings, 
was an instinctive, discriminating, and sober benevo- 
lence. He had a moral sense exquisitely acute, a 
faculty of perception singularly keen. It was not 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 43 

the mere benevolence of generous enthusiasm, but 
more like that of the Deity, steady, impartial, and 
comprehensive. 

From his very childhood he exhibited an extreme 
sensitiveness to the claims of justice and humanity, 
and an habitual abhorrence of cruelty. He detested 
spiders, because they killed flies ; and abominated 
butchers, because it was their profession to take life. 
And at a later period, in the instinctive and un- 
sophisticated exercise of this feeling, walking with a 
friend along a stream where fishermen were drawing 
the net, and had left the smaller fish upon the bank, 
without saying a word, he commenced gathering 
them and throwing them into the water to relieve 
suffering, and restore the happiness of existence. 
He privately and publicly protested against cruelty 
to animals. 

Blending with domestic affections, this benevolence 
made him an obedient and grateful son ; and though 
distance and the press of engagements prevented 
his visiting his parents for several years before their 
death, its memorials are left in the more frequent 
and affectionate correspondence of later years, and 
in the more substantial form of contribution from his 
own limited income for his aged mother's support. 
Entering conjugal life at almost the age of forty, 
with one to whom he had been " irrevocably devo- 
ted" for several years, but with whom an earlier union 
was made inexpedient from the state of his finances, 
his benevolence was reflected in the serene joy of 
his home for many years, and in domestic virtues, 
always more beautiful when adorning the character 
of great men. 



44 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

Beyond his family circle, his particular friends 
were selected for congeniality, and not for conveni- 
ence ; he sought not distinction by association with 
the great. Finding little sympathy with ordinary 
minds, and restrained from seeking association with 
superior men, by constitutional reserve, he number- 
ed few special friends. Immediate kindred did 
not absorb all his benevolent regards as with inferior 
and selfish minds. How often is friendship made a 
cloak for selfishness and injustice ! and its offices 
made to betray the littleness and caprice of a mean 
spirit ! As a great exemplar of human nature our 
Savior was not unmindful of the relations of kindred, 
but they were not allowed to absorb his sympathies, 
in partialities of affection and beneficence. The im- 
pression of Foster's character is similar. His love 
of the race would modify to proper exercise all par- 
ticular regards. He was animated as by a master- 
passion, with a comprehensive, considerate, and sober 
philanthropy. 

In purchasing small wares from the poor he would 
often pay them more than their prices ; was consid- 
erate of the time and convenience of tradesmen in 
their shops ; and showed the greatest sympathy for 
the laboring poor, especially those oppressed in their 
service. In a letter to a friend, he speaks of a wor- 
thy dependent, under a narrow-minded and exacting 
employer: *'I saw him sinking almost to the dust, in 
the hard service of that most mean and selfish mortal, 
the late ; he was longing to escape from a slave- 
ry poorly paid, and under which his health was evi- 
dently perishing. The good man has escaped from 
all the long grievances of a very suffering life; 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 45 

and I have suffered no loss by the attempt to save 
him." 

He was charitable toward the poor in their minor 
offences, on account of the temptations of poverty. 
If any person in peculiar distress were mentioned, 
even if he had scarcely any personal acquaintance 
with the individual, he would seem to keep him 
in remembrance and kindly inquire after his wel- 
fare. 

His benevolence in its more general and social op- 
eration was veiled in an apparent gloom and severi- 
ty. He had a deep feeling, at once mournful and 
indignant, of the " evil that is in the world, especially 
in its varied forms of base selfishness, fraud, injustice, 
and oppression, that gave his character and life al- 
most the appearance or cast of misanthropy." He 
saw the debasemepxt of human nature somethino- as 
we might suppose a superior and holy being from 
another world would have observed it. For these 
evils he held governments, rulers, nobles, men .of 
wealth, talents, &c., to a great extent, responsible ; 
and to ameliorate the condition of society, he felt it 
necessary to expose political and ecclesiastical abuses 
and corruptions. He plead for the people against 
oppression, legalized or lawless ; and devoted the 
amazing power of his genius to the promotion of so- 
cial and moral reforms ; and no bribery of office or 
emolument could seduce him from the service of the 
people to the obsequious flattery of crowns, or to si- 
lence, any more than the angel Gabriel from an ap- 
pointed mission. 

No man of equal powers was perhaps ever found 
so free from pride, assumption, or impatience toward 



46 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

inferiors, especially sincere Christians. He betrays 
no self-importance, never speaking of his own wri- 
tings or doings, even to a fault. 

Before God he abased himself. He saw Him who 
was invisible ; and the contrast of infinite grandeur 
and excellence with mere nothingness and pollution, 
presented itself in a vivid light to his intellectual vis- 
ion. With him this humbling view of self became 
a deeply-peneti'ating emotion; and it seemed to him 
not less preposterous than impious to assume any 
other position than that of deep abasement before 
the Divine Being. An extraordinary unworldliness 
pervades his whole character, and imparts to it an 
indescribable dignity : — 

*' He walked thoughtful the solemn, silent shore 
Of that vast ocean he must sail so soon." 

The spiritual world rose around him in forms of stu- 
pendous and palpable reality, like a range of mount- 
ain-summits leaning against the same sky, piercing 
the same heavens, and pointing to the same stars, the 
silent sentinels of nature, the same age after age. 
All terrestrial scenes in comparison were like the 
landscape, forests, habitations, generations of men, 
tribes of animals, flocks and herds of shepherds, upon 
which these summits look down, ever changing, ever 
passing away. This persuasion of the Divine Provi- 
dence extended to a belief, to a moderate extent, in 
what would be generally esteemed supernatural ap- 
pearances and revelations. There was an earnest 
longing, not unmixed with hope, that a ray of light 
from this quarter might gleam across the shaded 
frontiers. 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 47 

He was apt to be invaded by gloomy sentiments 
respecting the awful moral condition of our nature, 
and the tremendously mysterious economy of the Di- 
vine government. "At some moments of my life," 
he says, " the world, mankind, religion, and eternity, 
appear to me like one vast scene of tremendous con- 
fusion, stretching before me far away, and closed in 
shades of the most awful darkness ; a darkness which 
only the most powerful splendors of Deity can illu- 
mine, and which appear as if they never yet had illu- 
mined it." 

These difficulties will sui'prise inferior mmds not 
capable of tracing out the more difficult relations of 
truth in every direction running into mystery ; and 
some, influenced by envy or bigotry, will attempt to 
asperse his reputation by harsh epithets. Narrow 
and perverse minds, that would sooner carp at sup- 
posed spots in the sun, than rejoice in its light beam- 
ing upon them and the world, may enviously point 
out and censoriously criticise isolate sections or pas- 
sages. His adventurous mind, did, especially in re- 
gard to future punishment, raise questions of specu- 
lation beyond the limits of the human understanding. 
If any suppose his views upon that subject are not 
certainly and. necessarily contrary to revelation, all 
will agree that they lie beyond its scope ; and if true, 
would never have been revealed, as being liable to 
be abused, and not calculated to succor virtue or re- 
press vice. But to attempt to an-ay him on the side 
of modern universalism, as practically developed in 
England and in this country, would be like associa- 
ting Michael with the evil angels fighting against 
truth, holiness, and God. 



48 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

Though decided in his religious opinions, denomi- 
national partialities were not allowed to degenerate 
into sectarian littleness. He despised '* the circle or 
spell of any denomination as a party of systematics 
professing a monopoly of truth." Religion had been 
so far corrupted and clogged by the forms of religion, 
that he was jealous of all forms, even the simple and 
admissible, lest they should become invested with the 
tyranny of superstition. As the virtue of ordination 
consists in the selection and appointment with reli- 
gious service or prayer, he would have been willing 
and even preferred to waive anything more formal 
or institutional. But still he did not attach great im- 
portance to that matter — was not "particularly ap- 
prehensive of infection in that rag of popery." He 
so loathed the superstitious forms of corrupt and in- 
stituted religions that have frowned upon, opjDressed, 
and crushed the race — so loved the freedom of Chris- 
tianity, that, like baptists generally, and perhaps with 
deeper conviction, he would have no ordinances of 
recuriing appointment observed but public worship 
and the Lord's supper. 

His anxious curiosity about the future was quick- 
ened by the approach of death and the decease of 
friends. After the demise of any acquaintance, he 
seemed impatient to be made acquainted with the 
secrets of the invisible world. On one such occa- 
sion, rather more than one year before his own de- 
parture, he exclaimed, " They don't come back to 
tell us !" — then, after a short silence, emphatically 
striking his hand upon the table, he added, with a 
look of intense seriousness, " but we shall know some 
time." After the death of his son, he says : *' I have 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 49 

thought of him as now in another world, with the 
questions rising again, * Where, oh ! where ? in what 
manner of existence 1 amid what scenes, and revela- 
tions, and society ] with what remembrances of this 
world, and of us whom he has left behind in if?' — 
questions so often breathed, but to which no voice 
replies. What a sense of wonder and mystery over- 
powers the mind, to think that he who was here 

whose last look, and words, and breath, I witnessed 
— whose eyes I closed — whose remains are mould- 
ering in the earth not far hence — should actually be 
now a conscious intelligence, in another economy of 
the universe !" — " How full of mystery, and wonder, 
and solemnity, is the thought of where he may be 
now, and what his employments, and how divine the 
rapture of feeling with infinite certainty that he has 
begun a never-ending life of j)i'ogi'essive joy and 
glory !" Reflecting upon the death of his wife, he 
inquires : *' Oh, what is the transition ] ... It is to be 
past death — to have accomplished that one amazing 
act which we have yet undone before us, and are to 
do. It is to know what that awful and mysteiious 
thing is, and that its pains and terrors are gone past 
for ever. * I have died,' our beloved fi'iend says now, 
with exultation, ' and I live to die no more ! I have 
conquered through the blood of the Lamb.'" — 
" What is it to have passed through death, and to be 
now looking upon it as an event behind — an event 
from which she is every moment further removing ; 
when so lately, when but a few days since, she was 
every moment, as all mortals are, approaching nearer 
and nearer to it 1 What must be the thoughts, the 
emotions, on closely comparing these two states, un- 

5 



50 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS 

der the amazing impression of actual experience ? 
How many dark and most interesting and solemn 
questions (as they are to us — as they recently were 
to her) are now, to her, questions no longer !" 

Few, however, endowed with his originality and 
independence of mind, his love and power of specu- 
lation, have held so consistent and firm a faith. He 
maintained steadfastly the fundamental doctnnes of 
revelation — the ruined state of man; the necessity 
of a Divine intervention ; atonement by a Divine Me- 
diator; and of regeneration by the Holy Spirit. At 
an early period of life, after his most painful conflicts, 
he writes to Mr. Hughes : " The greatest part of my 
views are, I believe, accurately Calvinistic ; for a long 
while past I have fully felt the necessity of dismissing 
subtle speculations and distinctions, and of yielding 
an humble, cordial assent to the mysteiious truth, just 
as and because the Scriptures declare it, without in- 
quiring * How can these things be V Even at the 
time I refer to, I had not the slightest doubt respect- 
ing the doctrine of the atonement. I have always, 
without the interval of a moment, deemed it a grand 
essential of Christianity." — " I am verily persuaded 
that no man embraces this part of the gospel with a 
firmer belief or a warmer joy than I do. I solemnly 
aver that all my habitual confidence, as to what I 
shall become or accomplish, rests exclusively here. 
The alternative is sucJi a hope, or flat despair." — 
*' The doctrine of divine assistance, the gi'acious agen- 
cy of the Holy Spirit, is infinitely consolatory to me 
— a doctrine without which I should sink into de- 
spondency and despair." A short time before his 
death he said to a friend, " How dreary would old 



OF JOHN FOSTER. 51 

age and illness be without the great doctrine of the 
atonement !" 

After the humblest confession of delinquency in 
having been content with or endured such a low state 
of piety, he exclaims : " Oh what dark despair, but 
for that blessed light that shines from the Piince of 
Life, the only and all-suiEcient deliverer from the 
second death ! I have prayed earnestly for a genu- 
ine, penitential, living faith in him." — "There is 
much work to be done in this most unworthy soul ; 
my sole reliance is on divine assistance, and I do hope 
and earnestly trust that every day I may yet have to 
stay on earth will be employed as part of a period 
of persevering and I may almost say passionate peti- 
tions for the divine mercy of Christ ; and so continue 
to the last day and hour of my life, if consciousness 
be then granted." 

In 1842, he says : " Within and without are the ad- 
monitions that life is hastening to its close. I en- 
deavor to feel and live in confonnity to this admoni- 
tion, greatly dissatisfied with myself, having and seek- 
ing no ground of hope for hereafter but solely the 
all-sufficient merits and atonement of our Lord and 
Savior. If that gi'eat cause of faith and hope were 
taken away, I should have nothing left." 

In October, 1843, the very month of his death, 
speaking of the past, he says : " Such a review would 
consign me to utter despair, but for my finn belief 
in the all-sufficiency of the mediation of our Lord." 
In his last letter to Mr. Hill he says : " What would 
become of a poor, sinful soul, but for that blessed, 
all-comprehensive sacrifice, and that intercession at 
the right hand of the majesty on high V Speaking 



52 CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF JOHN FOSTER. 

to an attendant of his inability to do anything that 
required attention, he added, " But I can pray, and 
that is a glorious thing." On another occasion, in a 
few words of conversation, he said with emphasis — 
" Trust in Christ ; trust in Christ." And again, as 
evincing the tenor of his thoughts and the sustained 
elevation of his faith, he was overheard repeating to 
himself, "'O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, 
where is thy victory ? Thanks be to God, who giv- 
eth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.* " 
— *' Thus in the night, entirely alone, but Christ with 
him, October 16, 1843, all that was mortal of a being 
most ' fearfully and wonderfully made,' slept peace- 
fully, and expired." Few spirits have passed away 
from earth with more of intellectual grasp and pene- 
tration, or more of awakened interest and sublime 
expectation to meet the opening wonders and gran- 
deurs of the future world. 

*'• Soul of the just ! companion of the dead ! 
Where is thy home, and whither art thou fled ? 
Back to its heavenly source thy being goes. 
Swift as the comet wheels to whence he rose ; 
Doomed on his airy path awhile to brnm. 
And doomed, like thee, to travel, and return. . . . 
From planet whirled to planet more remote, 
He visits realms beyond the reach of thought ; 
But wheeling homeward, when his course is run, 
Curbs the red yoke, and mingles with the sun ! 
So hath the traveller of earth unfurled 
Her ti'embling wings, emerging from the world ; 
And o'er the path by mortal never trod, 
Sprung to her source, the bosom of her God !'' 



FOSTER'S THOUGHTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

EXISTENCE, ATTRIBUTES, WORKS AND PROVIDENCE, 

OF GOD. 

1. Any order of serious reflection leads to Goa. — 
The thought of virtue would suggest the thought of 
both a law^giver and a rewarder ; the thought of crime, 
of an avenger; the thought of sorrow, of a consoler; 
the thought of an inscrutable mystery, of an intelli- 
gence that understands it ; the thought of that ever- 
moving activity which prevails in the system of the 
universe, of a supreme agent ; the thought of the hu- 
man family, of a great father ; the thought of all being 
not necessary and self-existent, of a creator ; the 
thought of life, of a preserver ; and the thought of 
death, of an unconti'ollable disposer. By what dex- 
terity, therefore, of irreligious caution, did you avoid 
precisely every track where the idea of him would 
have met you, or elude that idea if it came ] And 
what must sound reason pronounce of a mind which, 
in the train of millions of thoughts, has wandered to 
all things under the sun, to all the permanent objects 
or vanishing appearances in the creation, but never 
fixed its thought on the Supreme Reality ; never ap- 
proached, like Moses, "to see this great sight?" 

2. Omnipresence mysteriously veiled. — Oh why is 
it so possible that this greatest inhabitant of every 



54 Foster's thoughts. 

place where men are living should be the last whose 
society they seek, or of whose being constantly neai 
them they feel the importance 1 Why is it possible 
to be surrounded with the intelligent Reality, which 
exists wherever we are, with attributes that are infi- 
nite, and not feel, respecting all other things which 
may be attempting to press on our minds and affect 
their character, as if they retained with difficulty 
their shadows of existence, and were continually on 
the point of vanishing into nothing 1 Why is this 
stupendous Intelligence so retired and silent, while 
present, in all the scenes of the earth, and in all 
the paths and abodes of men 1 Why does he keep 
his glory invisible behind the shades and visions of 
the material world ? Why does not this latent glory 
sometimes beam forth with such a manifestation as 
could never be forgotten, nor ever be remembered 
without an emotion of religious fear 1 

3, Enlarged conception of the Deity. — How all lit- 
tle systematic forms of theology vanish from the soul 
in the sublime endeavor to recognise, amid his own 
amazing works, the Deity of the universe ! — that is, 
to form such an idea of him as shall be felt to be wor- 
thy to represent the Creator and preserving Governor 
of such a scene. 

4. Overawing sense of God^s omniscience. — How is 
it possible to forget the solicitude which should ac- 
company the consciousness that such a being is con- 
tinually darting upon us the beams of observant 
thought (if we may apply such a term to Omnisci- 
ence) ; that we are exposed to the piercing inspection 
compared to which the concentrated attention of all 
the beings in the universe besides would be but as 
the powerless gaze of an infant 1 Why is faith, that 
faculty of spiritual apprehension, so absent, or so in- 
comparably more slow and reluctant to receive a just 
perception of the grandest of its objects, than the 
senses are adapted to receive the impressions of 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 55 

theirs 1 While there is a Spirit pervading the uni- 
verse with an Infinite energy of being, why have the 
few particles of dust which enclose our spirits the 
power to intercept all sensible communication with 
it, and to place them as in a vacuity, where the sacred 
Essence had been precluded t)r extinguished 1 

5. A contepiplation of God as a Spirit — invisi- 
ble in /lis presence, adapted to aiuahen atoe and ap- 
2)re/iension. — Much is seeing, feeling man actuated 
by the objects around him. All his powers are roused, 
impelled, directed, by impressions made on his sen- 
sitive organs ; yet objects of sense have only a defi- 
nite force upon him. A hundred weight crushes a 
man's strength to a certain degree, and no more : he 
sustains and bears it away. On the edge of the ocean 
he may tremble at the vast expanse, but he tries the 
depth near the shore, and finds it but a few feet, and 
no longer fears to enter it. The waves can not over- 
top his head ; or, is it deep ] — he can swim, and no 
longer regards it with fear. Nay, he builds a ship, 
and makes this tremendous ocean his servant, wields 
its vastness for his own use, dives to its deep bottom 
to rob it of its treasures, or makes its surface convey 
him to distant shores. A much smaller object shall 
affect him more, when his senses are less distinctly 
acted upon, but his imagination is somewhat aroused. 
When he travels in the dark, he starts at a slight but 
indistinct noise ; he knows not but it may be a wild 
beast lurking, or a robber ready to seize on him. 
Could he have distinctly seen what alarmed him, he 
had undauntedly passed on ; it was only the moving 
of the leaves waved gently by the wind. He stops, 
he considers well, for he hears the sound of water 
falling; a gleam from its foaming surface sparkles in 
his eye, but he can not tell how near to it, or how 
distant ; how exactly it might be in his path ; how 
tremendously deep the abyss into which he may fall 
at the next step. Had it been daylight, could he 



56 Foster's thoughts. 

have examined it thoroughly, he had then passed it 
without notice ; it is only the rill of a small ditch in 
the roadside ; his own foot could have stopped the 
trickling current. This effect of indistinctness rous- 
ing the imagination is finely depicted in Job iv. 14. 
Eliphaz describes it thus : " Fear came upon me and 
trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then 
a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh 
stood up : it stood still, but I could not discern the 
form thereof." The senses in this description are 
but slightly affected : the eye could not discern any 
specific form, the touch could not examine the pre- 
cise nature of the object; the imagination therefore 
had full scope, the mind was roused beyond the pow- 
er of sensible objects to stimulate it, and the body 
felt an agitation greater than if its senses had been 
more fully acted upon. " He trembled, the hairs of 
his flesh stood up. He could not discern the form," 
it might therefore be terrific in its shape or tremen- 
dous in its size. " It stood still," as if to do some- 
thing to him ; to speak ; perhaps to smite or to de- 
sti'oy ! And how could he guard against that which 
he could not see, could not tell whence or what it 
was; that which, from what he could discover, and 
still more from what he could not discover, seemed 
to be no mortal substance to which he was accus- 
tomed, and with which, with care and courage, he 
might deal safely ; but a spirit utterly beyond his im- 
pression, having unknown power to impress even him, 
who can tell in what degree 1 The certainty of an 
object so near him, joined to the uncertainty of what 
might be his powers, intentions, and natural opera- 
tions, impressed him deeply with awe, expectation, 
and anxiety. How absurd, then, how contrary to 
all their feelings in other cases, is the conduct of in- 
fidels who affect to despise God — to deny his exist- 
ence because they can not see him — or, without af- 
fecting this, do actually forget and do him despite, 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OP GOD. 57 

by occasion of this circumstance ! men who can be 
appalled at some distant danger, and grow courage- 
ous at what is near at hand — who tremble at a fel- 
low-man, or crawling reptile, and only show hardi- 
hood when their foe is Almighty. 

Without inquiring what Eliphaz saw, let us apply 
these ideas to the Supreme Being ; let us meditate on 
an object of infinitely greater, nearer importance — 
" the invisible God," the most impressively important 
because invisible. Let us, for a moment, suppose the 
contrary to be the case : suppose the Deity to be the 
object of our senses — he then loses much of his maj- 
esty ; he becomes fixed to one spot, that in which we 
can see him. He must be distant from many other 
places, and v^^hen revealing himself in other places, 
must be far distant from us, even at a time when we 
most need his presence. Nay, we should begin to 
compute him ; to philosophize upon and attempt ex- 
periments with him. Were he vast as the staiTy 
heavens, we could measure him ; bright as yonder 
sun, we could contrive to gaze at him ; energetic as 
the vivid hghtning, we could bring him down to play 
around us. In no form can we conceive of his being 
an object of sense, but we sink him to a creature; 
give iiim some definable shape, reduce him to a man 
or mere idol, and we have need to provide him a tem- 
ple made with hands for his accommodation. If, in- 
deed, there were any doubt of his existence (but that 
man is incapable of reasoning who reasons thus), 
there are proofs enough that he is at our right hand, 
though we do not see him ; that he works at our left 
hand° though we can not behold him. Instead of 
asking, with a sneer of doubt, " Where is he ?" or 
carelessly thinking thus, "Shall God seel" a much 
more rational method is with awe and reverence to 
say, " Whither shall I flee from thy presence ? thou 
hast beset me behind and before, and laid thy hand 
upon me." Could any supposition take place even 



58 Foster's thoughts. 

of his momentary absence — that he was far off, or on 
a journey, or asleep, and must needs be awaked — it 
might be alleged to sanction the careless, provided 
-they were aware of his absence, or knew the time of 
his drowsiness or distance ; but an omnipresent Al- 
mighty ought to fill us with seriousness, and the un- 
certainty of his operations, when, how, and where 
he will work, should fill us with deep, lasting, and con- 
stant awe. He exists : the thought makes a temple 
in every place I may be in; to realize it, is to begin 
actual worship ; whatever I may be about, to indulge 
it is to make all other existence fade away. Amid 
the roar of mirth I hear only his voice ; in the glitter 
of dissipation 1 see only his brightness ; in the midst 
of business I can do nothing but pray. He is pres- 
ent ! what may he not see ? The actions of my hands 
he beholds ! the voice of my words he hears ! the 
thoughts of my heart he discerns ! Could T see him, 
I might on this side guard against his penetrating 
eye, or on the other side act something in secret, safe 
from his inspection ; but present, without my being 
able to discern him, I ought to be watchful every 
way ; the slightest error may fill us with awful ap- 
prehensions. Even now, says conscience, he may 
be preparing his vengeance, whetting his glittering 
sword, or drawing to a head the arrows of destruc- 
tion. Could my eye see his movements, I might be 
upon my guard ; might flee to some shelter, or shrink 
away from the blow ; but, a foe so near, and yet so 
indiscernible, may well alarm me, lest the act of ini- 
quity meet with an immediate reward ; the blasphe- 
mous prayer for damnation receive too ready an an- 
swer from his hot thunderbolt ! He is a Spirit : what 
can he not do 1 Vast are his powers, quick his dis- 
cernments, invisible his operations ! No sword can 
reach him, no shield of brass can protect against him, 
no placid countenance deceive him, no hypocritical 
supplications impose upon him. He is in my inmost 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 59 

thoughts — in every volition ; he supports the nego- 
tiating principle while it determines on its rebellions, 
or plans some mode by which to elude his all-pene- 
trating perception. Vain is every attempt at evasion 
or resistance. "God is a Spirit;" is present every 
moment, suiTounds every object, watches my steps 
and waits upon me, though I can not discern his form, 
his measure, his power, or direct his movements. I 
see him before my face in the bright walks of nature, 
but I can not discern his form. The rich landscape 
shows him good, wise, and bounteous : but how boun- 
teous, good, or wise, who, from the richest landscape, 
can be able to guess 1 The brilliant sun gives a 
glimpse of his brightness ; the vast starry concave 
shows his immensity ; but how bright, how immense, 
it were impossible to say. Hark ! he speaks in that 
bursting- thunder, or he moves in that crushing earth- 
quake, he shines in that blazing comet. So much I 
can easily discern, but God is still far beyond my 
comprehension. I see nothing but the hidings of 
his power ; himself is still unknown. 

He guides the affairs of providence. I see him 
before my face, but I can not behold his form. Who 
but he could have raised Pharaoh — the Nebuchadnez- 
zar of ancient or modern times 1 Who but he could 
have rooted up a firmly-fixed throne, and poised a 
mighty nation upon the slender point of a stripling's 
energies ] I have seen him pass before me in my 
own concerns, leading me in a path I did not know, 
stopping me when on the verge of some destruction, 
filling my exhausted stores, and soothing my wearied 
mind to sweet serenity. I could not but say, " This 
is the Lord's doing, it is marvellous in my eyes ;" but 
I can not discern the form ; I know not what he will 
next do, nor dare I walk with presumptuous steps, 
or repose with self-complacent gratulation, and say, 
" My mountain stands strong. I shall never be moved.'' 



60 Foster's thoughts. 

He hides his face for a moment, and I am troubled ; 
he withdraws his hand, and I die. 

I see a spirit passing before me, I hear his voice in 
the secret recesses ; I find that there is a God, that he 
is near, that he stands full in view, with appalling in- 
distinctness, so that I tremble, and the hairs of my 
flesh stand up ; yet I can not discern the form. I know 
not what affrights, stops, impresses, crushes me. Com- 
pany I hate, for it neither dispels my sensations, nor 
harmonizes with them. Solitude I dread ; for the in- 
visible presence is there seen, and the unknown God 
is there felt in all his terrifying influence. To deny 
that some one is acting upon me, must be to deny 
that I see, feel, am anxious. Could I tell what, or 
who, I might call the wisdom of man to my assist- 
ance ; but it is the unknowable, yet well known ; the 
indiscernible, yet surely seen ; the incomprehensible, 
intangible, yet fully understood and ever-present God, 
that supports my trembling frame, and meets the 
warmest wishes of my too-daring mind ; the resolute 
determinations, ineflicacious exertions, and the stub- 
born submission of an unwilling soul. Ah ! let this 
present Invisible encircle me with his mercy, defend 
me with his power, fill me with his fear, and save me 
by his almighty grace. Then, though I discern not 
his form, I shall be conscious of his presence, and 
the delightful consciousness shall fill me with rever- 
ence indeed, but not make my flesh to tremble. He 
shall sooth my sorrows, inspire my hopes, give me 
confidence in danger, and supplies in every necessity. 
The consciousness of his nearness, approbation, and 
mercy, shall enable me to endure like Moses, as see- 
ing Him who is invisible. 

6. Attevijpt to escape the Divine presence vain and 
presumptuous. — When we withdraw from human in- 
tercourse into solitude, we are more peculiarly com- 
mitted in the presence of the Divinity ; yet some men 
retire into solitude to devise or perpetrate crimes. 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 61 

This is like a man going to meet and brave a lion in 
his own gloomy desert, in the very precincts of his 
dread abode. 

7. Grandeur and glory of God reflected from his 
works. — What is it, we would ask, that comes upon 
us in those beams — in the beams of those luminaries 
which are beheld by the naked eye, next of those 
countless myriads beheld by the assisted eye, and 
then of those infinite le scions which can never be re- 
vealed to the earth, but are seen by an elevated im- 
agination, and will perhaps burst with sudden and 
awful effulgence on the departed spirit] What is 
it, but the pure unmingled reflection of Him who 
can not be beheld in himself, who, present to all 
things, is yet in the darkness of infinite and eternal 
mystery, subsisting in an essence unparticipated, un- 
approached by gradation of other beings, impalpable 
to all speculation, refined beyond angelic perception, 
foreign from all analogy — but who condescends to 
become visible in the effects of his nature, in the lus- 
tre of his works ? 

8. The universe a tyj^e, — a symbol of the greatness 
and glory of the Supreme. — The universe, with all 
its splendors and magnitudes, ascertained, conjectur- 
ed, or possible, may be regarded — not as a vehicle, 
not as an inhabited form, or a comprehending sphere, 
of the Sovereign Spirit, but as a type, which signi- 
fies, though by a faint, inadequate correspondence 
after all, that as great as the universe is in the ma- 
terial attributes of extension and splendor, so great 
is the Divine Being in the infinitely transcendent na- 
ture of spiritual existence. 

9. Attributes of God revealed through the diversity 
and immensity of his works. — We are placed amidst 
the amazing scenes of his works extending on all 
sides, from the point where we stand to far beyond 
anything we can distinctly conceive oi infinity, in a 
diversity which not eternal duration will suffice for 

6 



62 Foster's thoughts. 

any creature to take account of all ; having within 
one day, one hour, one instant, operations, changes, 
appearances, to which the greatest angel's calculating 
faculty would be nothing; combining design — order 
— beauty — sublimity — utility. Such is the scene 
to be contemplated. But now while our attention 
wanders over it, or fixes on parts of it, do we regard 
it but as if it were something existing by itself? 
Can we glance over the earth, and into the wilder- 
ness of worlds in infinite space without being im- 
pressed with the solemn thought, that all this is but 
the sign and proof of something infinitely more glori- 
ous than itsein Are we not reminded — this is a pro- 
duction of his Almighty power; — that is an adjust- 
ment of his all-comprehending intelligence and fore- 
sight; — there is a glimmer, a ray of his beauty, his 
glory; — there an emanation of his benignity; — and 
there some fiery trace of his justice; — but for him 
all this never would have been ; — and if for a mo- 
ment his pervading energy were, by his will, restrain- 
ed or suspended, — what would it all be then ?..... 
That there should be men, who can survey the crea- 
tion with a scientific enlargement of intelligence, and 
then say " there is no God," is one of the most hideous 
phenomena in the world. 

10. Particularity of Divine Jcnotvledge. — Think 
what a compass of vision, and how much more he 
sees than we do, in any one act or incident on which 
our utmost attention may be fixed. To us there is 
an unknown part in every action. Our attention 
leaves one acting mortal to fix on another. He con- 
tinues to observe every one and all. Think again 
while we are judging. He is judging ! There is at 
this instant a perfected estimate in an unseen mind 
of this that I am thinking how to estimate ! — If that 
judgment could lighten on me and on its subject ! 

11. God overrules all events. — Sometimes in par- 
ticular parts and instances we can see how human 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 63 

actions in their confused mass or series, have been 
compelled into a process which results in what hu- 
man wisdom never could have predicted, and what 
an immensity of them is God compelling at this very- 
hour ! In our conscious feebleness of intelligence, 
it is striking to look at actions, and wonder what pur- 
pose of his he can make those conduce to — and 
those. Look at the vast world of them ; see what 
kind they are ; and then think what He must be 
that can control them all to his supreme purpose ! 
Yet there are some parts of the view in which the 
proceeding of Divine Providence is conspicuous and 
intelligible. We see lioiv sin is made its own plague, 
even in this life ; and how by what law — "holiness 
to the Lord" contains the living principle of happi- 
ness. And also, how some of the transactions and 
events in the world are tending to certain grand re- 
sults which God has avowed to be in his purpose. 

12. A belief in the Divine existence and sovereignty 
the only reliable foundation of virtue. — That solemn 
reverence for the Deity, and expectation of a future 
judgment, without which it is a pure matter of fact 
that there is no such thin 2^ on earth as an invincible 
and universal virtue. 

13. Deities of paganism and false religion, not above 
crimination themselves, can not, in their worship and 
moral systems, condemn sin in their votaries. — If there 
were ten thousand deities, there should not be one 
that should be authorized by perfect rectitude in it- 
self to punish /z^zm; not one by which it should be 
possible for him to be rebuked without having a right 
to recriminate. 

14. The atheist. — To the atheist there is nothing 
in place of that which is the supremacy of all exist- 
ence and glory. The Divine Spirit, and all spirits, 
being abolished, he is left amid masses and systems 
of matter, without a first cause, ruled by chance, or 
by a blind mechanical impulse of what he calls fate; 



64 Foster's thoughts. 

and as a little composition of atoms, he is himself to 
take his chance, for a few moments of conscious be- 
ing, and then to be no more for ever. And yet in 
this infinite prostration of all things, he feels an ela- 
tion of intellectual pride. 

15. Peculiar illumination of the atheist questioned. 
— But give your own description of what you have 
met with in a world which has been deemed to pre- 
sent in every part the indications of a Deity. Tell 
of the mysterious voices which have spoken to you 
from the deeps of the creation, falsifying the expres- 
sions marked on its face. Tell of the new ideas, 
which, like meteors passing over the solitary wan- 
derer, gave him the first glimpse of truth while be- 
nighted in the common belief of the Divine exist- 
ence. Describe the whole train of causes that have 
operated to create and consolidate that state of mind 
which you carry forward to the great experiment of 
futurity, under a different kind of hazard from all 
other classes of men. 

16. Ignorant and arrogant pretensians of the athe- 
ist. — The wonder then turns on the great process, by 
which a man could grow to the immense intelligence 
that can know that there is no God. What agres and 
what lights are requisite for this attainment ! This 
intelligence involves the very attributes of Divinity, 
while a God is denied. For unless this man is omni- 
present, unless he is at this moment in every place 
in the universe, he can not know but there may be 
in some place manifestations of a Deity by which 
even he would be overpowered. If he does not know 
absolutely every agent in the universe, the one that 
he does not know may be God. If he is not himself 
the chief agent in the universe, and does not know 
what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is 
not in absolute possession of all the propositions that 
constitute universal truth, the one which he wants 
may be, that there is a God. If he can not with cer- 



BEING AND ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 65 

tainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to ex- 
ist, that cause may be a God. If he does not know 
everything that has been done in the immeasurable 
ages that are past, some things may have been done 
by a God. Thus, unless he knov^^s all things — that 
is, precludes another Deity by being one himself — 
he can not know that the Being whose existence he 
rejects, does not exist. But he must know that he 
does not exist, else he desei-ves equal contempt and 
compassion for the temerity with which he firmly 
avows his rejection and acts accordingly. Surely 
the creature that thus lifts his voice, and defies all 
invisible power within the possibilities of infinity, 
challenging whatever unknown being may hear him, 
and may appropriate that title of Almighty which is 
pronounced in scorn, to evince his existence, if he 
will, by his vengeance, was not as yesterday a little 
child that would tremble and cry at the approach of 
a diminutive reptile. 

17. Certain philosophers impatient of the ideas of 
a Divine Providence and his revelation to the ivorld. 
— No builders of houses or cities were ever more 
attentive to guard against the access of inundation 
or fire. If He should but touch their prospec- 
tive theories of improvement, they would renounce 
them, as defiled and fit only for vulgar fanaticism. 
Their system of providence would be profaned by 
the intrusion of the Almighty. Man is to effect 
an apotheosis for himself, by the hopeful process of 
exhausting his corruptions. And should it take all 
but an endless series of ages, vices, and woes, to 
reach this glorious attainment, patience may sustain 
itself the while by the thought that, when it is real- 
ized, it will be burdened with no duty of religious 
gratitude. No time is too long to wait, no cost too 
deep to incur, for the triumph of proving that we 
have no need of that one attribute of a Divinity — 
which creates the grand interest in acknowledging 



66 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. 

such a Being — the benevolence that would make us 
happy. But even if this triumph should be found 
unattainable, the independence of spirit which has 
labored for it must not at last sink into piety. This 
afflicted world, " this poor terrestrial citadel of man," 
is to lock its gates, and keep its miseries, rather than 
admit the degradation of receiving help from God. 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 67 



CHAPTER II. 

THOUGHTS ON THE EVIDENCES OF RELIGION THE 

SOURCES, PREJUDICES, AND TENDENCIES, OF SKEP- 
TICISM, ETC. 

1 . Unsettled faith as unreasonahle as presumptuous. 
— If they [undecided individuals] really do not care 
enough about this transcendent subject, to desire, 
above all things on earth, a just and final determina- 
tion of their judgments upon it, we can only deplore 
that anything so precious as a mind should have been 
committed to such cruelly thoughtless possessors. We 
can only repeat some useless expressions of amaze- 
ment to see a i-ational being holding itself in such con- 
tempt ; and predict a period when itself will be still 
much more amazed at the remembrance how many 
thousand insignificant questions found their turn to 
be considered and decided, while the one involving 
infinite consequences was reserved to be determined 
by the event — too late, therefore, to have an auspi- 
cious influence on that event, which was the grand 
object, for the sake of which it ought to have been 
determined before all other questions. It is impos- 
sible to hear, with the slightest degree of respect of 
patience, the expressions of doubt or anxiety about 
the truth of Christianity, from any one who can delay 
a week to obtain this celebrated View of its Eviden- 
ces, or fail to read it through again and again. It is 
of no use to say what would be our opinion of the 
moral and intellectual state of his mind, if, after this, 
he remained still undecided. We regard Dr. Paley's 



68 Foster's thoughts. 

writings on the "Evidences of Christianity" as of so 
signally decisive a character, that we would be con- 
tent to let them stand as the essence and the close of 
the great argument on the part of its believers ; and 
should feel no despondency or chagrin if we could 
be prophetically certified that such an efficient Chris- 
tian reasoner would never henceforward arise. We 
should consider the grand fortress of proof, as now 
raised and finished, the intellectual capitol of that em- 
pire which is destined to leave the widest boundaries 
attained by the Roman very far behind. 

2. Christianity everything or nothing. — The book 
which avows itself, by a thousand solemn and explicit 
declarations, to be a communication from Heaven, is 
either what it thus declares itself to be, or a most 
monstrous imposture. If these philosophers hold it 
to be an imposture, and therefore an execrable de- 
ception put on the sense of mankind, how contempti- 
ble it is to see them practising their civil cringe, and 
uttering phrases of deference ! If they admit it to 
be what it avows itself, how detestable is their con- 
duct in advancing positions and theories, with a cool 
disregard of the highest authority, confronting and 
contradicting them all the while ! And if the ques- 
tion is deemed to be yet in suspense, how ridiculous 
it is to be thus building up speculations and systems, 
pending a cause which may require their demolition 
the instant it is decided ! Who would not despise or 
pity a man eagerly raising a fine house on a piece of 
ground at the very time in doubtful litigation % Who 
would not have laughed at a man who should have 
published a book of geography, with minute descrip- 
tions and costly maps, of distant regions and islands, 
at the very time that Magellan or Cook was absent 
on purpose to determine their position, or even verify 
their existence 1 

3. Christianity the supreme pursuit. — Assembling 
into one view all things in the world that are impor- 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 69 

• 

tant, and should be dear to mankind, I distinguish the 
Christian cause as the celestial soul of the assemblage, 
evincing the same pre-eminence, and challenging the 
same emphatic passion, which, in any other case ^niiid 
does beyond the inferior elements ; and I have no 
w^ish of equal energy w^ith that which aspires to the 
most intimate possible connexion with Him who is 
the life of this cause, and the Hfe of the world. 

4. Branches of tlie Christian argument. — A train 
of miracles, attested in the most authoritative manner 
that is within the competence of history; the evidence 
afforded by prophecies fulfilled, that the author of 
Revelation is the being who sees into futurity; the 
manifestation, in revealed religion, of a superhuman 
knowledge of the nature and condition of man ; the 
adaptation of the remedial system to that condition ; 
the incomparable excellence of the Christian morali- 
ty ; the analogy between the works of God and what 
claims to be the Word of God ; and the interposi- 
tions with respect to the cause and the adherents of 
religion in the course of the- Divine government on 
the earth : this grand coincidence of verifications has 
not left the faith of the disciple of Christianity at the 
mercy of optics and geometry. He may calmly tell 
science to mind its own affairs, if it should presume, 
with pretensions to authority, to interfere with his 
religion. 

5. Miracles not increSAhle. — We repel that philos- 
ophizing spirit, as it would be called, which insists on 
resolving all the extraordinary phenomena, recorded 
in the Old Testament, into the effect oi merely natu- 
ral causes ; just as if the order of nature had been 
constituted by some other and greater Being, and 
intrusted to the Almighty to be administered, under 
an obligation never to suspend, for a moment, the 
fixed laws ! Just as if it could not consist with infi- 
nite Wisdom to order a system so that in particular 
cases a greater advantage should arise from a mo- 



70 Foster's thoughts. 

mentary deviation than from an invariable proce- 
dure ! 

6. Argument from miracles. — Surely it is fair to 
believe that those who received from Heaven super- 
human power, received likewise superhuman wisdom. 
Having rung the great hell of the universe^ the sermon 
to follow must be extraordinary. 

7. Analogy of religion to the course of Nature. — 
It is an evident and remarkable fact, that there is 
a certain principle of correspondence to religion 
throughout the economy of the world. Things bear- 
ing an apparent analogy to its truths, sometimes more 
prominently, sometimes more abstrusely, present 
themselves on all sides to a thoughtful mind. He 
that made all things for himself appears to have 
willed that they should be a great system of em- 
blems, reflecting or shadowing that system of prin- 
ciples which is the true theory concerning him, and 
our relations to him. So that religion, standing up 
in grand parallel to an infinity of things, receives 
their testimony and homage, and speaks with a voice 
which is echoed by the creation. 

8. Proud assumption of infidelity. — Infidels assume, 
in subjects which from their magnitude necessarily 
stretch away into mystery, to pronounce whatever can 
or can not be. They seem to say, " We stand on an 
eminence sufficient to command a vision of all things : 
therefore whatever we can not see, does not exist." 

9 . Partial knoivledge of Divine economy should re- 
press reasoning pride. — We are, as to the grand sys- 
tem and series of God's government, like a man, who, 
confined in a dark room, should observe, through a 
chink of the wall, some large animal passing by : he 
sees but an extremely narrow strip of the object at 
once as it moves by, and is utterly unable to form an 
idea of the size, proportions, or shape of it. 

10. Process of the physical creation. — Darkness 
brooding, dim dreary light, herbs, sun, &c. Analogy. 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 71 

Consider the whole course of time as the world's 
moral creation. At what period and stage in the 
analogy has it noio arrived? — not more than the first 
day. 

11. Christianity beset with no more difficulties than 
other subjects. — The whole hemisphere of contempla- 
tion appears inexpressibly strange and mysterious. 
It is cloud pursuing cloud, forest after forest, and 
Alps upon Alps ! It is in vain to declaim against 
skepticism. I feel with an emphasis of conviction, 
and wonder, and regret, that almost all things are 
enveloped in shade; that many things are covered 
with thickest darkness ; that the number of things to 
which certainty belongs is small. ... I hope to enjoy 
" the sunshine of the other world." One of the very 
few things that appear to me not doubtful, is the truth 
of Christianity in general. 

12. Objections to Christianity from the discoveries 
of the telescope answered by those of the microscope. — 
Those who justify their infidelity by the discoveries 
of the telescope, seem to have chosen to forget that 
there is another instrument which has made hardly 
less wonderful discoveries in an opposite direction — 
discoveries authorizing an inference completely de- 
structive of that made from the astronomical magni- 
tudes. And it is very gratifying to see the lofty as- 
sumptions drawn, in a spirit as unphilosophical as 
irreligious, from remote systems and the immensity 
of the universe, and advanced against Christianity 
with an air of iiTesistible authority — to see them en- 
countered and annihilated by evidences sent forth 
from tribes and races of beings, of which innumera- 
ble millions might pass under the intensest look of 
the human eye imperceptible as empty space. It is 
immediately obvious that an incomparably more glo- 
rious idea is entertained of the Divinity, by conceiv- 
ing of him as possessing a wisdom and a power com- 
petent, without an effort, to maintain an infinitely- 



72 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. 

perfect inspection and regulation, distinctly, of all 
subsistences, even the minutest, comprehended in the 
universe, than by conceiving of him as only main- 
taining some kind of general superintendence of the 
system — only general, because a perfect attention to 
all existences individually w^ould be too much, it is 
deemed, for the capacity of even the Supreme Mind. 
And for the very reason that this would be the most 
glorious idea of him, it must be the true one. To 
say that we can, in the abstract, conceive of a mag- 
nitude of intelligence and power which would con- 
stitute the Deity, if he possessed it, a more glorious 
and adorable Being than he actually is, could be noth- 
ing less than flagrant impiety. 

13. Hopeless attempt of the deist to solve the great 
prohlem of the human condition. — The inquirer must 
be curious to see in what manner he disposes of the 
stupendous depravity, which through all ages has 
covered the earth with crimes and miseries; and how 
he has illustrated the grand and happy effects result- 
ing from the general and permanent predominance 
of the selfish over the benevolent affections, from the 
imbecility of reason and conscience as opposed to 
appetite, from the infinitely greater facility of form- 
ing and retaining bad habits than good ones, from 
the incalculable number of false opinions embraced 
instead of the true, and from the deprivation which 
is always found to steal very soon into the best insti- 
tutions. He must surely be no less solicitous to see 
the dignity and certainty of the moral sense verified 
in the face of the well-known fact that there is no 
crime which has not, in the absence of revelation, 
been committed, in one part of the world or another, 
without the smallest consciousness of guilt. 

14. Prejudices ofunhdievers. — They might perhaps 
be severely mortified to find what vulgar motives, 
while they were despising vulgar men, have ruled 
their intellectual career. Pride, which idolizes self, 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY^ 73 

which revolts at everything that comes in the foiTn 
of dictates^ and exults to find that there is a possibil- 
ity of controverting whether any dictates come from 
a greater than mortal source ; repugnance as well to 
the severe and sublime morality of the laws reputed 
of divine appointment, as to the feeling of accounta- 
bleness to an all-powerful Authority, that will not 
leave moral laws to be enforced solely by their own 
sanctions ; contempt of inferior men ; the attraction 
of a few brilliant examples ; the fashion of a class ; the 
ambition of showing what ability can do, and what 
boldness can dare : if such things as these, after all, 
have excited and directed the efforts of a philosophic 
spirit, the unbelieving philosopher must be content to 
acknowledge plenty of companions and rivals among 
little men, who are quite as capable of being actuated 
by these elevated principles as himself. 

15. Seeking for secondary causes to escape the rec- 
ognition of the sovereign agency of Divine Provi- 
dence. — As if a man were prying about for this and 
the other cause of damage, to account for the aspect 
of a region which has recently been devastated by 
inundations or earthquakes. 

16. Many betrayed into infidelity by a blinded ad- 
miration of the genius of brilliant but unprincipled au- 
thors. — There is scarcely any such thing in the world 
as simple conviction. It would be amusing to observe 
how reason had, in one instance, been overruled into 
acquiescence by the admiration of a celebrated name, 
or in another, into opposition by the envy of it ; how 
most opportunely reason discovered the truth just at 
the time that interest could be essentially served by 
avowing it ; how easily the impartial examiner could 
be induced to adopt some part of another man's opin- 
ions, after that other had zealously approved some 
favorite, especially if unpopular, part of his ; as the 
Pharisees almost became partial even to Christ, at 
the moment that he defended one of their doctrines 



74 poster's thoughts. 

against the Sadducees. It would be curious to see 
how a respectful estimate of a man's character and 
talents might be changed, in consequence of some 
personal inattention experienced from him, into de- 
preciating invective against him or his intellectual 
performances, and yet the railer, though actuated 
solely by petty revenge, account himself all the while 
the model of equity and sound judgment. Like the 
mariners in a story which I remember to have read, 
who followed the direction of their compass, infalli- 
bly right, as they could have no doubt, till they ar- 
rived at an enemy's port, where they were seized and 
made slaves. It happened that the wicked captain, 
in order to betray the ship, had concealed a large 
loadstone at a little distance on one side of the nee- 
dle. 

17. Writings of infidelity. — You would examine 
those pages with the expectation probably of some- 
thing more powerful than subtlety attenuated into in- 
anity, and, in that invisible and impalpable state, mis- 
taken by the writer, and willingly admitted by the 
perverted reader, for profundity of reasoning; than 
attempts to destroy the certainty, or preclude the ap- 
plication, of some of those great familiar principles 
which must be taken as the basis of human reason- 
ing, or it can have no basis ; than suppositions which 
attribute the order of the universe to such causes as 
it would be felt ridiculous to pronounce adequate to 
produce the most trifling piece of mechanism ; than 
mystical jargon which, under the name of Nature, al- 
ternately exalts almost into the properties of a god, 
and reduces far below those of a man, some imagi- 
nary and undefinable agent or agency, which per- 
forms the most amazing works without power, and 
displays the most amazing wisdom without intelli- 
gence ; than a zealous preference of that j^art of 
every great dilemma which merely confounds and 
sinks the mind, to that which elevates while it over- 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 75 

whelms it ; than a constant endeavor to degrade as 
far as possible everything that is sublime in our spec- 
ulations and feelings, or than monstrous parallels be- 
tween religion and mythology. 

18. False systems often apologized for , for tlie pur- 
pose of disparaging all religion. — There had not 
been in this country so free a display of every infidel 
propensity as to render it a matter of familiar obser- 
vation, that men who hate the intrusion of a Divine 
jurisdiction are much inclined to regard with favor 
a mode of pretended religion, which they can make 
light of as devoid of all real authority. They are so 
inclined because, through its generic quality (of re- 
ligion), it somewhat assists them to make light also 
of a more formidable thing of that quality and name. 
It comes, probably, with a great show of claims — an- 
tiquity, pretended miracles, and an immense number 
of believers : it may nevertheless be disbelieved with 
most certain impunity. Under the encouragement 
of this disbelief with impunity, the mind ventures to 
look toward other religions, and at last toward the 
Christian. That also has its antiquity, its recorded 
miracles, and its multitude of believers. Though 
there may not, perhaps, be impious assurance enough 
to assume formally the equality of the pretensions in 
the two cases, there is a successful eagerness to es- 
cape from the evidence that the apparent similarity 
is superficial, and the real difference infinite ; and the 
irreligious spirit springs rapidly and gladly, in its dis- 
belief, from the one, as a stepping-place to the other. 
But that which affords such an important convenience 
for surmounting the awe of the true religion, will nat- 
urally be a great favorite, even at the very moment 
it is seen to be contemptible, and indeed in a sense 
in consequence of its being so, complacency mingles 
with the very contempt for that from which contem.pt 
may rebound on Christianity. 

19. Origin of the elevated ideas in the pagan the- 



76 Foster's thoughts. 

ology. — Adverting to what may be called the theolo- 
gy of the system [paganism], no one denies that a 
number of very abstracted and elevated ideas rela- 
ting to a Deity are found in the ancient books, wheth- 
er these ideas had descended traditionally from the 
primary communication of divine truth to our race, 
or had divergfed so far toward the east from the rev- 
elation imparted through Moses to the Jews. . . A fa- 
ded trace of primeval truth remains in their theology, 
in a certain inane notion of a Supreme Spirit, distin- 
guished from the infinity of personifications on which 
the religious sentiment is wasted, and from those few 
transcendent demon figures which proudly stand out 
from the insiofnificance of the swarm. But it is un- 
necessary to say that this notion, a thin remote ab- 
straction, as a mere nebula in the Hindoo heaven, is 
quite ineflScient for shedding one salutary ray on the 
spirits infatuated with all that is trivial and gross in 
superstition. 

20. Paganism distinguished from Divine revela- 
tion. — The system, if so it is to be called, appears, to 
a cursory inquirer at least, an utter chaos, without 
top, or bottom, or centre, or any dimension or pro- 
portion, belonging to either matter or mind, and con- 
sisting of materials which certainly deserve no better 
order. It gives one the idea of immensity filled with 
what is not of the value of an atom. It is the most 
remarkable exemplification of the possibility of ma- 
king the grandest ideas contemptible by conjunction ; 
for that of infinity is here combined with the very ab- 
stract of worthlessness. While it commands the faith 
of its subjects, completes its power over them by its 
accordance to their pride, malevolence, sensuality, 
and deceitfulness ; to that natural concomitant of 
pride, the baseness which is ready to prostrate itself 
in homage to anything that shall put itself in place 
of God ; and to that interest which criminals feel to 
transfer their own accountableness upon the powers 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 77 

above them. But then think what a condition for 
human creatui'es ! they beHeve in a religion which 
invigorates, by coincidence and sanction, those prin- 
ciples in their nature which the true religion is in- 
tended to destroy ; and in return, those principles 
thus strengthened contribute to confirm their faith in 
the religion. The mischief inflicted becomes the 
most effectual persuasion to confidence in the in- 
flicter, 

21. M^dtiplicity of pagan wickedness, — And so in- 
defatigable was its exercise, that almost all conceiv- 
able forms of immorality were brought to imagina- 
tion, most of them into experiment, and the greater 
number into prevailing practice, in those nations : in- 
somuch that the sated monarch would have imposed 
as difficult a task on ingenuity in calling for the in- 
vention of a new vice as of a new pleasure. 

22. Pi-ide revolted into infidelity hy the impartial 
philanthropy of Christianity. — Let that pride speak 
out ; it would be curious to hear it say that your men- 
tal refinement perhaps might have permitted you to 
take your ground on that eminence of the Christian 
faith where Milton and Pascal stood, ^/' so many hum- 
bler beings did not disgrace it by occupying the de- 
clivity and the vale. 

23. Perverse blindness of those who see no moral 
beauty and grandeur in Divine revelation. — Like an 
ignorant clown who, happening to look at the heav- 
ens, perceives nothing more awful in that wilderness 
of suns than in the row of lamps along the streets ! 
If you do read that book in the better state of feeling, 
I have no comprehension of the mechanism of your 
mind, if the first perception would not be that of a 
simple, venerable dignity, aud if the second would 
not be that of a certain abstract, undefinable magnifi- 
cence ; a perception of something which, behind this 
simplicity, expands into a greatness beyond the com- 
pass of your mind ; an impression like that with which 



78 poster's thoughts. 

a thoughtful man would have looked on the counte- 
nance of Newton, after he had published his discov- 
eries, feeling a kind of mystical absorption in the 
attempt to comprehend the magnitude of the soul re- 
siding within that form. 

24. The blighting influence of infidelitAj. — Reli- 
gion, believed and felt, is the amplitude of our moral 
nature. And how wretched an object therefore is a 
mind, especially of thought, sensibility, and genius, 
condemned to that poverty and insulation which in- 
fidelity inflicts, by annihilating around it the medium 
of a sensible interest in the existence, the emotions, 
the activities, of a higher order of beings ! 

2b. The gospel provides for those overlooked by phi- 
losophy and false religion.— ^Jt is the beneficent dis- 
tinction of the gosjDel, that notwithstanding it is of a 
magnitude to interest and to surpass angelic investi- 
gation (and therefore assuredly to pour contempt on 
the pride of human intelligence that rejects it for its 
meanness), it is yet most expressly sent to the class 
which philosophers have always despised. And a 
good man feels it a cause of grateful joy, that a 
communication has come from Heaven, adapted to 
effect the happiness of multitudes, in spite of natural 
debility or neglected education. 

26. Christianity dissevered from its corruptions. 
—Such a man as I have supposed, understands what 
its tendency and dictates really are, so far at least 
that, in contemplating the bigotry, persecution, hy- 
pocrisy, and worldly ambition, which have stained, 
and continue to stain, the Christian history, his mind 
instantly dissevers, by a decisive glance of thought, 
all these evils, and the pretended Christians who are 
accountable for them, from the religion which is as 
distinct from them as the Spirit that pervades all 
things is pure from matter and from sin. In his 
view, these odious things and these wicked men that 
have arrogated and defiled the Christian name, sink 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 79 

out of sight through a chasm, like Korah, Dathan, 
and Abiram, and leave the camp and the cause holy, 
though they leave the numbers small. 

27. Glory of religion obscured hy imperfect mani- 
festation. — Contracted and obscured in its abode, the 
inhabitant will appear, as the sun through a misty 
sky, with but little of its magnificence, to a man who 
can be content to receive his impression of the intel- 
lectual character of the religion from the mode of its 
manifestation from the minds of its disciples ; and, in 
doing so, can indolently and perversely allow himself 
to regard the weakest mode of its displaying itself, 
as its truest image. In taking such a dwelling, the 
religion seems to imitate what was prophesied of its 
author, that, when he should be seen, there would be 
no beauty that he should be desired. This humilia- 
tion is inevitable ; for unless miracles are wrought, to 
impart to the less intellectual disciples an enlarged 
power of thinking, the evangelic truth must accom- 
modate itself to the dimensions and unrefined habi^ 
tudes of their minds. 

28. Christianity prejudiced hy the ignorant repre- 
sentatives of its friends. — As the gospel comprises an 
ample assemblage of intellectual views, and as the 
greater number of Christians are inevitably disqualifi- 
ed to do justice to them, even in any degree, by the same 
causes which disqualify them to do justice to other in- 
tellectual subjects, it is not improbable, that the great- 
er number of expressions which he has heard in 
his whole life, have been utterly below the subject. 
Obviously this is a very serious circumstance ; for if 
he had heard as much spoken on any other intellec- 
tual subject, as, for instance, poetry, or astronomy, 
for which perhaps he has a passion, and if a similar 
proportion of what he had heard had been as much 
below the subject, he would probably have acquired 
but little partiality for either of those studies. And 
it is a very melancholy disposition against the human 



80 Foster's thoughts. 

heart, that the gospel needs fewer unfavorable asso- 
ciations to become repulsive in it, than any other im- 
portant subject, 

29. Christianity distinguished from its corrup- 
tions. — In the view of an intelligent and honest mind 
the religion of Christ stands as clear of all connexion 
with the corruption of men, and churches, and ages, 
as when it was first revealed. It retains its purity 
like Moses in Egypt, or Daniel in Babylon, or the 
Savior of the world himself, while he minsrled with 
scribes and Pharisees, or republicans and sinners. 

30. The evangelical systeyn appears ivitho2it form 
or comeliness to ivorldlymen. — In admitting this por- 
tion of the system as a part of the truth, his feelings 
amount to the wish that a different theory had heen 

true The dignity of religion, as a general and 

refined speculation, he may have long acknowledged ; 
but it appears to him as if it lost part of that dignity, 
in taking the specific form of the evangelical system ; 
just as if an ethereal being were reduced to combine 
his radiance and subtilty with an earthly nature. . . 
. . . The gospel appears to him like the image in 
Nebuchadnezzar's dream, refulgent indeed with a 
head of gold; the sublime truths which are inde- 
pendent of every peculiar dispensation are luminous- 
ly exhibited ; but the doctrines which are added as 
descriptive of the peculiar circumstances of the 
Christian economy, appear less splendid, and as if 
descending toward the qualities of iron and clay. 

31. Inadequate and narrow views of some Chris- 
tians. — He may sometimes have heard the discourse 
of sincere Christians, whose religion involved no in- 
tellectual exercise, and, strictly speaking, no subject 
of intellect. Separately from their feelings, it had 
no definition, no topics, no distinct succession of views. 
And if he or some other p^'son attempted to talk on 
some part of the religion itself as a thing definable 
and important, independently of the feelings of any 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 81 

individual, and as consisting in a vast congeries of 
ideas, relating to the divine government of the world, 
to the general nature of the economy disclosed by 
the Messiah, to the distinct doctrines in the theory 
of that economy, to moral principles, and to the great- 
ness of the future prospects of man, — they seemed 
to have no concern in that religion, and impatiently 
interrupted the subject vv^ith the observation, — that 
is not experience. 

32. The gospel adapted, to all orders of mind. — 
By want of acuteness do you fail to distinguish be- 
tween the mode (a mere extrinsic and casual mode), 
and the substance ] In the world of nature you see 
the same simple elements wrought into the plainest 
and most beautiful, into the most diminutive and the 
most majestic forms. So the same simple principles 
of Christian truth may constitute the basis of a very 
inferior, or a very noble, order of ideas. The prin- 
ciples themselves have an invariable quality; but 
they were not imparted to man to be fixed in the 
mind as so many bare scientific propositions, each 
confined to one single mode of conception, without 
any collateral ideas, and to be always expressed in 
one unalterable form of words. They are placed 
there in order to spread out, if I might so express it, 
into a great multitude and diversity of ideas and feel- 
ings. These ideas and feelings, forming round the 
pure, simple principles, will correspond, and will 
make those principles seem to correspond, to the 
meaner or more dignified intellectual rank of mind. 
Why will you not perceive that the subject which 
takes so humble a style in its less intellectual believ- 
ers, unfolds greater proportions through a gradation 
of larger and still larger faculties, and with facility 
occupies the whole capacity of the amplest, in the 
same manner as the ocean fills a gulf as easily as a 
creek] Through this series it retains an identity 
of its essential principles, and appears progressively 



82 Foster's thoughts. 

a nobler thing only by gaining a position for more 
nobly displaying itself. Why will you not follow it 
through this gradation, till it reach the point where 
it is presented in a greatness of character, to cor- 
respond with the improved state of your mind 1 Nev- 
er fear lest the gospel should prove not sublime 
enough for the elevation of your thoughts. If you 
could attain an intellectual eminence from which you 
would look with pity on the rank which you at pres- 
ent hold, you would still find the dignity of this sub- 
ject occupying your level, and rising above it. Do 
you doubt this ] What then do you think of such 
spirits, for instance, as those of Milton and Pascal ? 
And by how many degrees of the intellectual scale 
shall yours surpass them, to authorize your feeling that 
to be little which they felt to be great 1 They were 
often conscious of the magnificence of Christian truth 
filling, distending, and exceeding, their faculties, and 
sometimes wished for greater powers to do it justice. 
In their noblest contemplations, they did not feel their 
minds elevating the subject, but the subject elevating 
their minds. 

33. Christianity the same amid the various and 
changing evils of the world. — It is most consolatory 
to reflect, that religion, like an angel walking among 
the ranks of guilty men, still untainted and pure, re- 
tains, amid all these black and outrageous evils, 
the same benign and celestial spirit, and gives the 
same independent and perpetual pleasures. The 
happiness of the good seeks not the smile of guilty 
power, nor dreads its frown. Let a Christian philos- 
ophy, therefore, elevate all our speculations, calm our 
indignant feelings, and dignify all our conduct 

34. Tivo ways to atheism. — There is a broad easy 
way to atheism through thoughtless ignorance, as 
well as a narrow and difficult one through subtle 
speculation. 

35. Dreary eminence of infidelity. — I am describing 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 83 

the progress of one of the humble order of aliens from 
all religion, and not that by which the great philo- 
sophic leaders have ascended the dreary eminence, 
where they look with so much complacency up to a 
vacant heaven, and down to the gulf of annihilation. 

36. Consmnviation of alloived skepticism. — The 
progress in guilt, which generally follows a rejection 
of revelation makes it still more and more desirable 
that no object should remain to be feared. It was 
not strange therefore if this man read with avidity or 
even strange if he read with something which his 
wishes completed into conviction, a few of the writers, 
who have attempted the last achievement of presump- 
tuous man. After inspecting these pages awhile, 
he raised his eyes, and the great Spirit was gone. 
Mighty transformation of all things ! The luminaries 
of heaven no longer shone with his splendor; the 
adorned earth no longer looked fair with his beauty ; 
the darkness of night had ceased to be rendered solemn 
by his majesty ; life and thought were not an effect 
of his all-pervading energy ; it was not his providence 
that supported an infinite charge of dependent be- 
ings ; his empire of justice no longer spread over the 
universe ; nor had even that universe sprung from 
his all-creating power. 

37. The boasted triumph of iufidelity in the death 
of Hume. — To be a conscious agent, exerting a rich 
combination of wonderful faculties to feel, an infinite 
variety of pleasurable sensations and emotions, to 
contemplate all nature, to extend an intellectual pres- 
ence to indefinite ages of the past and future, to pos- 
sess a perennial spring of ideas, to run infinite lengths 
of inquiry, with the delight of exercise and flcetness, 
even when not with the satisfaction of full attain- 
ment, and to be a lord over inanimate matter, com- 
pelling it to an action and a use altogether foreign to 
its nature, to be all this, is a state so stupendously 
different from that of being simply a piece of clay, 



84 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. 

that to be quite easy, and complacent in the immedi- 
ate prospect of passing from the one to the other is 
a total inversion of all reasonable estimates of things ; 
it is a renunciation, we do not say of sound philoso- 
phy, but of common sense. The certainty that the 
loss will not be felt after it has taken place, will but 
little sooth a man of unperverted. mind in consider- 
ing what it is that he is going to lose. 

The jocularity of the philosopher was contrary to 
good taste. Supposing that the expected loss were 
not, according to a grand law of nature, a cause for 
melancholy and desperation, but that the contentment 
were rational ; yet. the approaching transformation 
was at all events to be regarded as a very grave and. 
very strange event, and therefore jocularity was to- 
tally incongruous with the anticij^ation of such an 
event : a grave and solemn feeling was the only one 
that could be in unison with the contemplation of such 
a change. There was, in this instance, the same in- 
congruity which we should impute to a v/riter who 
should mingle buffoonery in a solemn crisis of the 
drama, or with the most momentous event of a his- 
tory. To be in harmony with his situation, in his 
own view of that situation, the expressions of the dy- 
ing philosopher were required to be dignified. ; and 
if they were in any degree vivacious, the vivacity 
ought to have been rendered graceful by being ac- 
companied with the noblest effort of the intellect of 
which the efforts were going to cease for ever. The 
low vivacity of which we have been reading, seems 
but like the quickening corruption of a mind whose 
faculty of perception is putrefying and dissolving 
even before the body. It is true that good men, of a 
high order, have been known to utter pleasantries in 
their last hours. But these have been pleasantries 
of a fine ethereal quality, the scintillations of anima- 
ted, hope, the high pulsations of mental health, the in- 
voluntary movements of a spirit feeling itself free 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 85 

even in the grasp of death, the natural springs and 
boundings of faculties on the point of obtaining a still 
much greater and a boundless liberty. These had 
no resemblance to the low and labored jokes of our 
philosopher ; jokes so labored as to give strong cause 
for suspicion, after all, that they were of the same 
nature, and for the same purpose, as the expedient 
of a boy on passing through some gloomy place in 
the night, who whistles to lessen his fear, or to per- 
suade his companion that he does not feel it. 

Such a manner of meeting death was inconsistent 
with the skepticism, to which Hume was always found 
to avow his adherence. For that skepticism neces- 
sarily acknowledged a possibility and a chance that 
the religion which he had scorned, might, notwith- 
standing, be found true, and might, in the moment 
after his death, glare upon him with all its 'terrors. 
But how dreadful to a reflecting mind would have 
been the smallest chance of meeting such a vision ! 
Yet the philosopher could be cracking his heavy 
jokes, and Dr. Smith could be much diverted at the 
sport. 

To a man who solemnly believes the truth of reve- 
lation, and therefore the threatenings of divine ven- 
geance against the despisers of it, this scene will 
present as mournful a spectacle as perhaps the sun 
ever shone upon. 
8 



86 poster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER III. 

THOUGHTS ON THE LAW OF GOD ITS HOLINESS, COM- 
PREHENSIVENESS, APPLICATIONS, AND EVASIONS. 

1. God a lawsriver. — The first view of the relation 
betw^een God and all other beings, is that of his be- 
ing their Creator. The next view of the relation is 
that which manifests him as a Lawgiver. By the 
very na^ture of the case, this must be an essential part 
of the relation. No right so absolute, to give laws, 
can be conceived, as that of the Creator ; for he is 
necessarily the Supreme Being. He has a perfect 
and exclusive property in what he has created. All 
created being is entirely dependent on him for being 
and well-being. He alone can have a perfect under- 
standing of what is the right state, and the right pro- 
cedure, of created beings ; they can not understand 
themselves, and therefore could not, if they would, 
devise competent laws. He alone has the power to 
enforce a system of laws over the whole creation. 
The mention of the " whole creation" may suggest 
one application of the terms — the amazing extent of 
the scene of his legislation ! 

2. Supposition of a divine law necessary. — We can 
not conceive of the sovereign Creator and Governor 
of the world as not appointing a law to his intelligent 
creatures ; that he should be what the epicureans ac- 
counted of their gods, perfectly careless about the 
world and what may be done in it. As the Maker 
of creatures who are to be wholly and for ever de- 
pendent upon him, he must necessarily have them 



LAW OF GOD. 87 

under his sovereign authority. He must, also, ne- 
cessarily have a ivill with respect to the state of the 
dispositions, and the order of actions, of his intelligent 
creatures, and he must perfectly know what is right 
for them. He would, therefore, as at once the su- 
preme authority and the infallible intelligence, pre- 
scribe to his creatures a latv of injunction and prohi- 
bition—a grand mie of discrimination and obligation. 
He would do so, except on one supposition, namely, 
that he had willed to constitute his rational creatures 
such that they must necessarily always be disposed 
and always act right, by the infallible propensity of 
their nature— by their own unalterable and eternal 
choice ; so that there could be no possibility of their 
going wrong from either inclination or mistake. But 
the Almighty did not so constitute any natures that 
we know anything of. 

3. Comprehensiveness of the divine law, — Perhaps, 
according to that divine standard, which is the ulti- 
mate abstraction of all relations, analogies, measures, 
and proportions, and in which the laws and princi- 
ples of the natural world, and those of the moral, are 
resolved in the same (are in their original undivided 
essence), the gi'andeur of a virtue may be as great or 
much greater than that of a volcano, the mischief of 
a vice as great as that of an earthquake. 

4. The law necessarily holy. — As to the quaUty 
and extent of that law, proceeding from a perfectly 
holy Being, it could not do less than prescribe a per- 
fect holiness in all things. Think of the absurdity 
there is in the idea that its requirements should be 
less than perfect holiness. For that less — what should 
it be ? Wliat would or could the remainder be after 
holiness up to a certain point and stopping there ? 
It must be not holiness just so far. Not holiness ? 
and what must it be, then ? What could it be, but 
something unholy, wrong, sinful ? Thus a law not 
requiring perfect rectitude, would so far give an al- 



88 Foster's thoughts. 

lowaiice, a sanction, to what is evil — sin. And fi'om 
Him who is perfectly and infinitely holy ! An utter 
absurdity to conceive ! A law from such an author 
will not and can not reduce and accommodate itself 
to an imperfect, fallen, and incapable state of those 
on whom it is imposed . . . exacting no more than just 
what an imperfect, fallen creature can perform — [and] 
allowing and sanctioning all the vast amount of un- 
holiness beyond : [else] a strong indisposition to the 
right and disposition to the wrong would become a 
clear acquittance, the greatest depravity confer the 
amplest piivilege of exemption, and an intense and 
perfect aversion to all holiness, as constituting the 
greatest inability to conform to the divine law, would 
constitute very nearly a perfect innocence. 

5. Liaw unalterable. — How little is this recognised 
among the multitude amenable to it ! It is as if the 
tables written on Sinai had been subjected to be 
passed through the camp for the people to revise, 
intei'polate, erase, or wholly substitute, at their pleas* 
ure. Never Jesuit's commentary on the Bible falsi- 
fied it more than the world's system of principles 
perverts or supplants that of the Almighty. This 
operation began even in Eden, through *' the wis- 
dom that is from beneath," and has continued ever 
since. 

6. Comprehensive application of the law. — Doubt- 
less not the wide compass of the scene and subjects 
is meant, but the quality of the law as imperative on 
man, its authority and requirements applied to so 
many points, the comprehensiveness, the universality 
of its jurisdiction. It reaches and comprehends the 
whole extent of all things in which there is the dis- 
tinction of right and wrong, good and evil. Now, 
then, think of the almost infinite multiplicity of things 
in which this distinction has a place ; the grand total 
of what is passing in men's minds, converse, and ac- 
tion — is passing at this hour — has been in the course 



LAW OF GOD. ggj" 

of the day — during the whole course of life of each 
and all. Think how much, how little, of all this can 
be justly considered as withdrawn from the jurisdic- 
tion of the Divine authority and law. A wide rain, 
or the beams of the sun, hardly fall on a greater mul- 
titude and diversity of things. 

7. Complaisancy of holy beings in the law. — Now 
an intelhgent creature, in a right state — that is, a 
holy state, in harmony with God — would be deeply 
pleased that all things should be thus marked with a 
signification of his will. For how happy, to be in 
all things at the direction of the Supreme Wisdom ! 
in all things made clearly aware what is confoi-mity 
to the Divine Excellence ; insomuch that, if the case 
could be supposed of anything of material interest 
being left without this mark of the Divine Will, un- 
der an eclipse of the hght from God, that would to 
such a spirit appear as something distressing, and 
fearful, and portentous — would be felt as threaten- 
ing some undefinable hazard. To a being possessed 
and filled with the reverential love of God, it would 
be a most acceptable and welcome thing, that thus it 
should be made manifest in all things what is his 
pleasure ; that the whole field of existence and ac- 
tion should bear all over it the decided and precise 
delineations, as on a map, of the ways which his 
creatures are to take. Should it not be so ? Must 
it not be so to an un corrupted and holy creature of 
God ? But is it so to the general spirit of mankind ? 
is it so naturally to any of them ] 

8. Distinctions of the Imv effaced. — It is deplorable 
to consider how large a proportion of all the vices 
and crimes of which mankind were ever guilty, have 
actually constituted, in some or other of their tribes 
and ages, a part of the approved moral and religious 
system. It is questionable whether we could select 
from the worst forms of turpitude any one which has 
not been at least admitted among the authorized cus- 
8* 



90 Foster's thoughts. 

toms, if not even appointed among the institutes of 
the rehgion, of some portion of the human race, 

9. Dominion of the laiv sought to he restricted. — It 
is not a welcome thing that the law of God is so " ex- 
ceeding broad." Accordingly, its breadth is, in ev- 
ery imaginable way, endeavored to be narrowed. It 
is true that even the veiy apprehension of it is very 
limited and faint. If the dullness and contractedness 
of apprehension could be set aside for an interval, 
and a palpable, luminous manifestation made of the 
vast compass and the whole order of distinctions of 
this Divine law, it would strike as ten times — a hun- 
dred times — beyond all that had been suspected. 
Yet still, in multitudes of minds, there is apprehen- 
sion enough of such a widely-extended law to cause 
disquietude, to excite reaction and a recourse to any- 
thing that will seem to narrow that law .... If the 
Divine juiisdiction would yield to contract its com- 
prehension, and retire from all the ground over which 
a practical infidelity heedlessly disregards or deliber- 
ately rejects it, how large a province it would leave 
free. 

10. The great sanction of morals arises from the 
recognition of the Divine law, and not from civil gov- 
ernment. — With all its gravity, and phrases of wis- 
dom, and show of homage to virtue, it was, and was 
plainly descried to be, that very same noli me tangere, 
in a disguised form ; a less provoking and hostile 
manner only of keeping up the state of preparation 
for defensive war. Every one knew right well that 
the pure approbation and love of goodness were not 
the source of law ; but that it was an arrangement 
originating and deriving all its force from self-inter- 
est — a contrivance by which each man was glad to 
make the collective strength of society his guaranty 
against his neighbor's interest and wish to do him 
wrong .... A preceptive system thus estimated could 
not, even had the principles to which it gave expres- 



LAW OF GOD. 91 

sion in the mandates of law, been no other than those 
of the soundest morality, have impressed them with 
the weight of sanctity on the conscience. And all 
this but tends to show the necessity that the rules and 
sanctions of morality to come with simplicity and 
power on the human mind, should primarily emanate, 
and be acknowledged as emanating, from a Being 
exalted above all implication and competition of in- 
terest with man. 

11. Good principles efficacious only as ahetted hy 
the sanctions of a Divine law. — Supposing them intrin- 
sically right, what will that — merely that — avail, amid 
the commotion of the passions, the beguilements of 
immediate interest, the endless beselment of tempta- 
tions ? Man is not a being to be governed by prin- 
ciples, detached from an overawing power. Set them 
in the best array that you can in his mind, to fight 
the evil powers within and from without, but refuse 
them weapons from the armory of heaven — let no 
lightning of the Divine eye, no thunder of the Di- 
vine voice, come in testimony and in aid of their op- 
eration — and how soon they will be overwhelmed 
and trampled down ! like the Israelites when de- 
serted of God in their battles, the very ark of God 
surrendered to the pagans ! 

12. Second great commandment. — This can not be 
intended in the absolutely and rigorously literal 
sense ; but it must be dictated in a meaning which 
presses severely, all round, on the sphere of exclusive 
self-love — so severely as to compress and crush that 
affection into a gi'ievous narrowness of space, unless 
it can escape into liberty and action some other way, 
in some modified quality. There is a way in which 
\Xcan expand and indulge itself, without violating the 
solemn law imposed, namely, that self-love or self- 
interest should be exalted to such a temper that its 
gi'atification, its gratification of itself^ should actually 
very much consist in promoting the welfare 6f others. 



92 Foster's thoughts. 

13. The law to be applied in judging the character 
and actions of men. — It is a fatal error to take from 
the world itself our principles for judging of the 
world. These must be taken absolutely from the 
Divine authority, and always kept true to the dic- 
tates of that ; for nothing can be more absurd (not to 
say pernicious) than to have a set of rules different 
from them. Therefore it is as in the temple, and at 
the oracles of God, that the principles are to be re- 
ceived and fixed, to go out with forjudging of what 
we behold. And a frequent recourse must he had 
thither, to confirm and keep them pure. The prin- 
ciples are thus to be something independent, and as 
it were sovereign, above that which they are to be 
applied to. But instead of this, a great part of man- 
kind let their principles for judging be formed by 
that world itself which they are to observe and judge. 
They have forjudging by, a whole set of apprehen- 
sions, notions, maxims, moral and religious, not at all 
identical with the Divine dictates. Therefore, not 
through any virtue of candor or charity, but through 
false principles, they perceive but little evil [sin, 
folly] in many of the " works done," which the high 
and pure authority condemns. They do not see the 
beam of " fiery indignation," which, from Heaven, 
strikes here and there ; they do not see shrivelled 
into insignificance many things which the world ac- 
counts most imj)ortant. It does not come full out in 
their sight how far the actions of men agree, or not 
agree, with their awful future prospects. 

14. Conscience the monitor of the Divine law. — Con- 
science is to communicate with something mysteri- 
ously great, which is without the soul, and above it, 
and everywhere. It is the sense, more explicit or 
obscure, of standing in judgment before the Al- 
mighty. That which makes a man feel so, is a 
part of himself; so that the struggle against God 
becomes a struggle with man's own soul. There- 



LAW OF GOD. 93 

fore conscience has often been denominated " the 
God in man." 

15. The facilities of conscience for applying the Di- 
vine law. — Now conscience, by having its dvvelHng 
deep within, has a great advantage as a judge in 
comparison of outward observers. It is seated with 
its lamp down in the hidden world among the vital 
sentiments and movements at the radical depth of 
the dispositions, at the very springs of action, among 
the thoughts, motives, intentions, and wishes. 

16. Conscience o-estrains from violating the law. — 
The infinite multitude of criminals would have been 
still more criminal but for this. It has often struck 
an irresolution, a timidity, into the sinner, by which 
his intention has been frustrated. Its bitter and vin- 
dictive reproaches after sin, have prevented so speedy 
or frequent repetitions of the sin. It has prevented 
ihQ whole n\an from being gratified by sin; it has 
been one dissentient power among his faculties, as 
if, among a company of gay revellers, there should 
appear one dark and frowning intruder, whom they 
could neither conciliate nor expel. 

17. Conscience will minister in executing the j)€n- 
alty of the law. — We foresee that it will awake ! and 
with an intensity of life and power proportioned to 
this long sleep, as if it had been growing gigantic 
during its slumber. It will rise up with all that su- 
periority of vigor with which the body will rise at 
the resurrection. It will awake ! — probably in the 
last hours of life. But if not — it will nevertheless 
awake ! In the other world there is something which 
will certainly awake it at the last day. 

18. Conscience perverted obscures the distinctions of 
the law. — One most disastrous circumstance is instant- 
ly presented to our thoughts, namely, that with by far 
the greatest number of men that have lived, conscience 
has been separated from all true knowledge of God 
All heathens, of all ages and countries ; with but lit- 



94 Foster's thoughts. 

tie limitation the same may be said of the Mohamme- 
dans; and to a very great extent it is true of the pa- 
pists. The superior and eternal order of principles 
is nearly out of sight, as in some counti'ies they rarely 
see the sun or the stars. 

19. Conscience made unfaithful to the laiv. — -Sup- 
posing the whole of what the Divine law condemns, 
and therefore conscience ought, to be measured by a 
scale of one hundred degrees of aggravation — then 
the censure beginning at one, will become extremely 
severe by the time of rising to fifty. But let this first 
fifty be struck off, as harmless, in accommodation to 
the general notions and customs — what then 1 Why 
then, conscience will but begin, and in slight terms, 
its censures at the fifty-first degree, and so, at the 
very top of the scale, will pronounce with but just 
that emphasis which was due at the point where it 
began. 

20. Modes of evading the laic. — (1.) The bold, di- 
rect, decisive one, is — infidelity : to deny the exist- 
ence of the Supreme Lawgiver himself. Then the 
Sovereign Voice is silent. Then the destruction of 
the Divine law takes, as it were, from the centre in- 
stead of by a contraction of its wide extension. Then 
all things are right which men wish, and can, and 
dare do ; right, as to any concern of conscience — the 
practical regulations which atheists would feel the 
necessity for, would be only a matter of policy and 
mutual self-defence. 

(2.) To reject a revelation is an expedient little 
less summary and effectual for the purpose. A God 
believed or supposed, but making no declaration of 
his will and the retribution, would give very little dis- 
turbance to sinners. For as to what has been termed 
natural religion, though a fine systematic theory may 
be framed, it is, for anything like practical effect, no 
more than a dream. It was so among the bulk of 
the cultivated heathens ; and now the rejecters of 



LAW OF GOD. 95 

revelation would be sure not to allow themselves to 
be defrauded of their advantage by admitting any- 
thing more than they liked of the rules and authority 
of natural religion. 

(3.) By the indulgence of sin, not only in action or 
thought, but also in the heart. It is by the under- 
standing and the conscience that the Divine law is to 
be apprehended in its amplitude. Now nothing is 
more notorious than the baneful effect which in- 
dulged and practised sin has on both these. It in- 
flicts a gi'ossness on the understanding, which ren- 
ders it totally unadapted to take cognizance of any- 
thing which is to be spiritually discerned — as una- 
dapted as our bodily senses are to perceive spirits. 
It throws a thick obscurity over the whole vision of 
the Divine law, so that nothing of it is distinctly per- 
ceived, except where sometimes some part of it 
breaks out in thunder. The conscience partakes the 
stupefaction — is insensible to a thousand accusations 
and menaces of the Divine law, every one of which 
ought to have been pungent and painful. 

(4.) The general operation of self-love. The be- 
ing has a certain sense of not being in a state of peace 
and harmony with God, but of alienation, opposition, 
and in a degree hostility, but still devotedly loves it- 
self. It has therefore a set of self-defensive feelings 
against him. But since it could not defend itself 
against his power, it endeavors to defend itself against 
his law. It ventures to question the necessity or pro- 
priety of one point of his law ; refuses to admit the 
plain intei'pretation of another, or to admit the clear 
inferences from undeniable rules. It makes large 
portions of the Divine law refer to other men and 
times ; to special and transient occasions and circum- 
stances ; is ingenious in inventing exemptions for it- 
self; weakens the force of both the meaning and the 
authority of the Divine dictates which it can not avert 
from their application to itself. Thus it " renders 



96 poster's thoughts. 

void" much of both the spirit and the letter ; and thus 
places itself amid a dwindled and falsified system of 
the Divine legislation. 

(5.) The influence of the customs and maxims of 
the world. For a moment, suppose these admitted 
to constitute the supreme law and standard. Let all 
that these adjudge superfluous, be left out and re- 
jected ; all that these aecount indifferent, be set down 
so ; all that these warrant by practice, be formally 
sanctioned ; all that these pronounce honorable and 
admirable, be inscribed in golden letters ; all that 
these have settled as true wisdom, be adopted as 
principles and oracles. Especially, let what the cus- 
tom and notions of the world have mainly satisfied 
themselves with in respect to religion be admitted, 
as the true scheme of our relations and duties to God. 
This system now ! — Let it be placed opposite to the 
Divine law ! Would it not be like Baal's prophets 
confronting Elijah 1 like Satan propounding doctrine 
to our Lord 1 like a holy angel and the devil looking 
in each other's face ? But, think ! — this is actually 
the system on which the notions and habits of the 
multitude are formed ! Thus the Divine law, in its 
exceeding breadth, is made, as it is said of the heav- 
ens, to " depart as a scroll that is rolled together." 

(6.) A notion and a feeling as if, man being so very 
imperfect a creature, it can not be that there is an 
absolutely perfect law in authority over him. It is 
impossible for him to meet such a law in full con- 
formity, and therefore it is a moderate and more in- 
dulgent one that he is responsible to. But where is 
there any declaration of such a law 1 What can the 
idea really mean, but a tolerance and approval of 
something that is evil? Something different from 
that which is perfect — less than — what can this be 
but evil 1 Shall there be a law from the holy God to 
sanction evil, because man is evil ? 

(7.) The plea of grace, which pretends to absolve 



LAW OF GOD. 97 

Christians from the claims of the sovereign rule, be- 
cause their justification is on an entii-ely different 
ground. So that they stand as independent of the 
law as he is who appointed it. There are different 
degrees in which this odious heresy is made a prac- 
tical principle. A spirit truly renewed through di- 
vine grace, becomes an emphatic approver of the law. 
It is a reflection of the character of Him whom he 
adores, and wishes to resemble. 
9 



98 poster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER IV. 

VIEWS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND 
SOCIAL DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 

1. Sinful nature of tnan disclosed hy Ms acts. — 
Look at the general qualities of actions over this w^ide 
world, and think what they collectively testify of man ! 
And in noticing men's actions in the detail, it will be 
a useful exercise and habit to trace them back to 
what they proceed from in the nature of man, and 
what they therefore show to be in that nature. Hu- 
man nature discloses itself freely, fully, and fear- 
lessly, in some men ; with caution, art, and partial 
concealment, in others. But a multitude of unequiv- 
ocal manifestations of all its attributes will present 
themselves to the attentive observer. It is of course 
that he ought to maintain candor or rather say equi- 
ty ; but he is not to let go the plain maxim that the 

fruits show the tree For whence does all the 

evil in action come from ? Is the heart becoming 
drained into purity, by so much evil having come 
from it % Alas ! there is a perennial fountain, unless 
a Divine hand close it. 

2. Ruling passions of man selfish. — The main 
strength^of human feelings consists in the love of 
sensual gratification, of distinction, of power, and of 
money. 

3. The vast amount of wickedness, repressed hy 
menaced retribution, to he charged to the account of hu- 
man nature. — The man inclined to perpetrate an ini- 
quity, of the nature of a wrong to his fellow-mortals, 



DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 99 

is apprized that he shall provoke a reaction, to resist or 
punish him ; that he shall incur as gi'eat an evil as 
that he is disposed to do, or greater; that either a 
revenge regardless of all formalities of justice w^ill 
strike him, or a process instituted in organized soci- 
ety will vindictively reach his property, liberty, or life. 
This defensive an-ay, of all men against all men, com- 
pels to remain shut up within the mind an immensity 
of wickedness which is there burning to come out 

into action It is not very uncommon to hear 

credit given to human nature, apparently in sober 
simplicity, for the whole amount of the negation of 
bad actions thm prevented, as just so much genuine 
virtue, by some dealers in moral and theological spec- 
ulation. 

4. Civil law and, pliilosopliy can not avail fully to 
repress depravity. — There was nothing to insinuate 
or to force its way into the recesses of the soul, to 
apply there a repressive power to the depraved ar- 
dor which glowed in the passions. That was left, 
inaccessible and inextinguishable, as the subterra- 
nean fires in a volcanic region Reflect on the 

extent of human genius, in its powers of invention, 
combination, and adaptation ; and then think of all 
this faculty — in an immense number of minds, through 
many ages, and in every imaginable variety of situa- 
tion, exerted with unremitting activity in aid of the 
wrong propensities. 

5. Philosophers overlooking the moral perversion 
of human nature Hind guides. — Here in a moral sense 
are wheels that will not turn— springs without elas- 
ticity — levers that break in the application of their 
force ; and you tell me there is no radical fault in the 
machinery ! One thing is clear, that I can never learn 
from instructors Uke you, how to have the miserable 
disorder rectified. You know too little of mankind 
— about yourselves — about the gi-eat standard. 

6. Reproductive power of moral evil — It is per- 



100 poster's thouqhts. 

petually invigorated by the very destruction w^hich 
it w^orks ; as if it fed upon the slain to strengthen 
itself for new slaughter, and absorbed into its own, 
every life which it takes away. For it is in the na- 
ture of moral evil, as acting on human beings, to 
create to itself new facilities, means, and force, for 
prolonging that action. And to what a dreadful per- 
fection of evil might such a race attain but for death, 
that cuts the term of individuals so short, and but for 
the Spirit of God, that converts some, and puts a 
degree of restraint on the rest. 

7. Depravity ivijyresscd upon tli e chief works of man. 
— False religion that has raised so many superb tem- 
ples, of which the smallest remaining ruins bear an 
impressive character of grandeur ; that has prompted 
the creation, from shapeless masses of substance, of 
so many beautiful or monstrous forms, representing 
fabulous super-human and divine beings ; and that 
has produced some of the most stupendous works in- 
tended as abodes, or monuments, of the dead. It is 
the evil next in eminence, war, that has caused the 
earth to be embossed with so many thousands of mas- 
sy structures in the form of towers and defensive 
walls — so many remains of ancient camps — so many 
traces of the labors by which armies overcame the 
obstacles opposed to them by rivers, rocks, or mount- 
ains — and so many triumj)hal edifices raised to per- 
petuate the glory of conquerors. It is the oppressive 
self-importance of imperial tyrants, and of their infe- 
rior commanders of human toils, that has erected those 
magnificent residences which make afar greater figure 
in our imagination, than the collective dwellings of 
the humbler population of a whole continent, and that 
has in some spots thrown the surface of the earth into 
new^ forms. 

8. Character of the mass not to be inferred from 
individual examples of virtue. — There was perhaps 
a learned and vigorous monarch, and there were 



DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 101 

Cecils, and Walsinghams, and Shaksperes, and Sid- 
neys, and Spencers, with many other powerful think- 
ers and actors, to render it the proudest age of our 
national gloiy. And we thoughtlessly admit on our 
imagination this splendid exhibition as in some man- 
ner Involvino- or implying the collective state of the 
people in that age ! The ethereal summits of a tract 
of the moral world are conspicuous and fair in the 
lustre of heaven, and we take no thought of the im- 
mensely greater proportion of it which is sunk in 
gloom and covered with the shadows of ignorance 
and vice. 

9. Wickedness amid scenes ofheauty. — That there 
is a luxuriant verdure — that there are flowers — rich 
fields — fmitful trees — pleasing sounds, and tastes, 
and odors — streams— soft gales — picturesque land- 
scapes — what is all this as set against the other fact, 
that there are — in almost infinite mass, and number, 
and variety — bad dispositions and passions — ^bad 
principles — wicked thoughts— vile language— im- 
pieties and crimes of all possible kinds % 

10. Appalling aspect of man's depraviUj. — Consid- 
ering man in this view, the sacred oracles have repre- 
sented him as a more melancholy object than Nineveh 
or Babylon in ruins ; and an infinite aggregate of ob- 
vious facts confiiTns the doctrine. 

11. Popular moral ignorance. The masses in a 
condition analogous to what their physical existence 
would have been under a total and permanent eclipse 
of the sun. It was perpetual night in their souls, 
with all the phenomena incident to night, except the 
sublimity. 

12. A figure of the moral state of the n)orld--T\\Q 
right state of the sun is to be one full orb of radiance ; 
that though there be some small spots and dimmer 
points, it should be in effect a complete and glorious 
luminary ! Imagine then if you can this effulgence 
extinguished, and turned to blackness over all its glo- 

9* 



102 Foster's thoughts. 

rious face, excepting here and there a most diminu- 
tive point, emitting one bright ray like a small star. 
What a ghastly phenomena ! and if it continued so 
the utter ruin of the system. But such we behold 
the condition of the human race In the incal- 
culable human mass of a whole idolatrous world, we 
are shown here and there an individual, or a diminu- 
tive combination of individuals, little shining particles, 
specimens of what the right state of the world would 
have heen. 

13. Aggregate view of the history of the tvorld 
appalling. — I have sometimes thought, if the sun 
were an intelligence, he w^ould be horribly incensed 
at the world he is appointed to enlighten ; such a 
tale of ages, exhibiting a tiresome repetition of stu- 
pidity, follies, and crimes. 

14. Common persuasion of human depravity. — 
We have such an habitual persuasion of the general 
depravity of human nature, that in falling among 
strangers we always reckon on their being irreligious, 
till we discover some specific indication of the con- 
trary. 

15. Popular ignorance intercepts the rays of moral 
illumination. — Utter ignorance is a most effectual 
fortification to a bad state of the mind. Prejudice 
may perhaps be removed ; unbelief may be reasoned 
with ; even demoniacs have been compelled to bear 
witness to the truth ; but the stupidity of confirmed 
ignorance not only defeats the ultimate efficacy of the 
means for making men wiser and better, but stands 
in preliminary defiance to the very act of their ap- 
plication. It reminds us of an account, in one of the 
relations of the French Egyptian campaigns, of the 
attempt to reduce a garrison posted in a bulky fort 
of mud. Had the defences been of timber, the be- 
siegers might have set fire to and burnt them ; had 
they been of stone, they might have shaken and ul- 
timately breached them by the batteiy of their can- 



DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 103 

non ; or they might have undermined and blovs^n them 
up. But the huge mound of mud had nothing sus- 
ceptible of fire or any other force ; the missiles from 
the artillery were discharged but to be buiied in the 
dull mass ; and all the means of demolition were 

baffled He finds, as he might expect to find, 

that a conscience without knowledge has never taken 
but a very small portion of the man's habits of life, 
under its jurisdiction ; and that it is a most hopeless 
thing to attempt to send it back reinforced, to reclaim 
and conquer, through all the past, the whole extent 
of its rightful but never assumed dominion. 

16. Stupidity of ignorant ivickedness at the ap- 
proach of death. — They had actually never thought 
enough of death to have any solemn associations with 
the idea. And their faculties were become so rigid- 
ly shrunk up, that they could not now admit them ; 
no, not while the portentous spectre was unveiling 
his visage to them, in near and still nearer approach ; 
not when the element of another world was begin- 
ning to penetrate through the rents of their mortal 
tabernacle. It appeared that literally their thoughts 
could not go out from what they had been through 
life immersed in, to contemplate, with any realizing 
feeling, a gi'and change of being, expected so soon 
to come on them. They could not go to the fearful 
brink to look off. It was a stupor of the soul not to 
be awakened but by the actual plunge into the reali- 
ties of eternity. " I hope it will please God soon to 
release me," was the expression to his religious med- 
ical attendant of such an ignorant and insensible mor- 
tal within an hour of his death which was evidently 
and directly brought on by his vices. 

17. Portentous aspect of masses of human beings 
perishing for lack of knowledge. — We have often 
mused, and felt a gloom and dreariness spreading 
over the mind while musing, on descriptions of the 
aspect of a country after a pestilence has left it in 



104 poster's thoughts. 

desolation, or of a region where the people are per- 
ishing by famine. It has seemed a mournful thing 
to behold, in contemplation, the multitude of lifeless 
forms, occupying in silence the same abodes in which 
they had lived, or scattered ujDon the gardens, fields, 
and roads ; and then to see the countenances of the 
beings yet languishing in life, looking despair, and 
impressed with the signs of approaching death. We 
have even sometimes had the vivid and horrid picture 
offered to our imagination, of a number of human 
creatures shut up by their fellow-mortals in some 
stronghold, under an entire privation of sustenance ; 
and presenting each day their imploring, or infuriated, 
or grimly sullen, or more calmly woful countenances, 
at the iron and impregnable grates ; each succeeding 
day more haggard, and miserable, more perfect in 
the image of despair ; and after a while appearing 
each day one fewer, till at last all have sunk. Now 
shall we feel it as a relief to turn in thought, as to a 
sight of less portentous evil, from the inhabitants of 
a country, or from those of such an accursed prison- 
house, thus pining away, to behold the different spec- 
tacle of national tribes, or any more limited portion 
of mankind, on whose minds are displayed the full 
effects of knowledge denied ; who are under the pro- 
cess of whatever destruction it is, that sj)irits can suf- 
fer from want of the vital aliment to the intelligent 
nature, especially from "a famine of the words of the 
Lord '?".... Since that period when ancient history, 
strictly so named, left off describing the state of man- 
kind, more than a myriad of millions of our race have 
been on earth, and quitted it without one ray of the 
knowledge the most important to spirits sojourning 
here, and going hence. 

18. 'Retrospect of the lieatlien world. — We can not 
look that way but we see the whole field covered 
with inflicters and sufferers, not seldom interchanging 
those characters. If that field widens to our view, it 



DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 105 

is still, to the utmost line to which the shade clears 
away, a scene of cmelty, oppression, and slavery ; of 
the strong trampling on the weak, and the weak of- 
ten attempting to bite at the feet of the sti'ong ; of 
rancorous animosities and murderous competitions of 
persons raised above the mass of the community ; of 
treacheries and massacres ; and of war, between 
hordes, and cities, and nations, and empires — war 
never ^ in spirit, intermitted, and suspended sometimes 
in act only to acquire renewed force for destruction, 
or to find another assemblage of hated creatures to 
cut in pieces. 

19. State of the pagan ivorld. — While the immense 
aggregate is displayed to the mental view, as per- 
vaded, agitated, and stimulated, by the restless forces 
of appetites and passions, and those forces operating 
with an impulse no less perverted than strong, let it 
be asked what kinds and measure of restraint there 
could be upon such a world of creatures so actuated, 
to keep them from rushing in all ways into evil. 

20. Thick darkness of Romanism intimtated by the 
somhre shadows still resting on 7iations and the church. 
— Indeed, the thickness of the preceding darkness 
was strikingly manifested by the deep shade which 
still continued stretched over the nation, in spite of 
the newly-risen luminary, whose beams lost their 
brightness in pei'vading it to reach the popular mind, 
and came with the faintness of an obscured and te- 
dious dawn. 

21. Savage state. — But he would become sober 
enough, if compelled to travel a thousand miles 
through the desert, or over the snow, with some of 
these subjects of his lectures and legislation ; to ac- 
company them in a hunting excursion ; to choose in 
a stormy night between exposure in the open air and 
in the smoke and grossness of their cabins ; to ob- 
serve the intellectual faculty narrowed almost to a 
point, limited to a scanty number of the meanest 



106 Foster's thoughts. 

class of ideas ; to find by repeated experiments that 
his kind of ideas could neither reach their under- 
standing nor excite their curiosity ; to see the raven- 
ous appetite of wolves succeeded for a season by a 
stupidity insensible even to the few interests which 
kindle the utmost ardor of a savage ; to witness loath- 
some habits occasionally diversified by abominable 
ceremonies; or to be for once the spectator of some 
of the circumstances which accompany the wars of 
savages. 

22. Dejjravity a harrier to tlie heneficcnt operation 
of government. — No form of government will be prac- 
tically good, as long as the nations to be governed are 
in a controversy, by their vices and irreligion, with 
the Supreme Governor. 

23. Depravity assimilates civil institutions to its 
own standard. — It will pervert even the very schemes 
and operations by which the world would be im- 
proved, though their first principles were pure as 
Heaven ; and revolutions, great discoveries, augment- 
ed science, and new forms of polity, will become in 
effect what may be denominated the sublime mechan- 
ics of depravity. 

24. Of an extremely depraved child. — T never saw 
so much essence of devil put in so small a vessel. 

25. The pagan world — its degrading rites, degra- 
ded population, and evidences of sjnritual death. — Let 
him [the observer] enter a country where the majes- 
tic idea of a Deity, originally imparted to our race, is 
transmuted into an endless miscellany of fantastic and 
odious fables, in what are esteemed the sacred books, 
and in the minds of that small proportion of the in- 
habitants that read them ; and where the mass of mil- 
lions, together too with the more cultivated few, fall 
prostrate in adoration of the rudest pieces of mud 
and lumber that their own hands can shape. Let 
him walk out from his retired room or tent, after his 
soul has been raised in prayer to a real and an infi- 



DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 107 

nite Being, and approach one of those many shrines, 
which, in a populous district, he may see deforming 
the country around him, and behold a number of crea- 
tures in his own shape fixed in petrified reverence, 
or performing grave ritual antics, before a filthy fig- 
ure, or sometimes an unshaped lump of wood or stone, 
daubed black and red, which piece of rubbish, with- 
out a shape, or in a shape more vile and ugly than it 
is possible for European hands to make, stands there 
in substitution for that Infinite Spirit which he has 
just been worshipping : it stands for the most part in 
real and perfect substitution ; but if it were in repre- 
sentation, the case would be very little better 

Let him observe, as performed at the dictate of the 
laws, customs, and priests, of this superstition, such 
barbarous and whimsical self-inflicted penances and 
torture, and such sacrifices of living relatives, as it 
would be supposed some possessing fiend had com- 
pelled the wretched pagans to adopt for his diver- 
sion ; let him observe, amid these tyrannic rigors of 
a super-conscience, an entire want of conscience with 
respect to the great principles of morality, and the 
extinction in a great degree of the ordinary sympa- 
thies of human nature for suffering objects ; let him 
notice the deceitful and cruel character of the priest, 
exactly conformable to the spirit of the superstition ; 
and let him consider those unnatural but insuperable 
distinctions of the classes of society, which equally 
degrade the one by a stupid servility, and the other 
by a stupid pride. And, finally, let him reflect that 
each day many thousands of such deluded creatures 
are dying, destitute of all that knowledge, those con- 
solations, and those prospects, for which he adores 
the author of the Christian revelation. How would 
he be able to quell the sentiment of horror which 
would arise in his mind at every view and every 
thought of what we have thus supposed him to wit- 
ness ? He would feel as if something demoniac in- 



108 Foster's thoughts. 

fested all the land and pervaded all the air, inspiring 
a general madness previous to a general execution. 
For he would feel an unconquerable impression that 
a land could not be so abandoned of the Divine mer- 
cy, but to be soon visited by the Divine vengeance ; 
and that vengeance he v^ould hardly at some mo- 
ments be able to deprecate, while beholding the oc- 
casional extraordinary excesses of frantic abomina- 
tion. It would appear to him that the very time was 
come for a glorious display of justice, and that such 
a solitude as Noah found, on descending from the 
ark, would be a delightful sequel to this populous 

and raging tumult of impiety A moral sense 

that belongs to man is wanting in them ; so that infi- 
nitely the most important of the elements and phe- 
nomena of the world are unapparent and impalpable 
to them : just as much so as that class of things and 
properties are to our present five senses, which might, 
as Locke observes, have been perceptible to us by 
means of a sixth or seventh sense, which the Creator 
could no doubt have given us. To these men, all the 
concerns and interests designated by the terms divine, 
spiritual, immortal, are nearly the same as non-existent. 

26, Depravity evinced in a imiversal tendency to so- 
cial deterioration. — All political institutions will prob- 
ably, from whatever cause, tend to become worse 
by time. If a system were now formed, that should 
meet all the philosopher's and the philanthropist's 
wishes, it would still have the same tendency ; only 
I do hope that henceforward to the end of time, men's 
minds will be intensely awake to the nature and op- 
eration of their institutions ; so that after a new era 
shall commence, governments shall not slide into de- 
pravity without being keenly watched, nor be watch- 
ed without the sense and spirit to arrest their de- 
terioration. 

27. Theformidahle prevalence of evil an iiiscrutahle 
mystery. — The prevalence of evil in only this one 



DEPRAVITY OF MAN. 109 

world, is an inexpressibly mysterious and awful fact ; 
insomuch, that all attempts to explain how it is con- 
sistent with the perfect goodness of an Almighty Be- 
ing, have left us in utter despair of any approach 
toward comprehending it. A pious spirit, not delu- 
ded by any of the vain and presumptuous theories 
of philosophical or theological explanation, while 
looking toward this unfathomable subject, can repose 
only in a general confidence that the dreadful fact, 
of the prevalence of evil in this planet, is in some un- 
imaginable way combined with such relations, and 
such a state of the grand whole of the divine empire, 
that it is perfectly consistent with infinite goodness in 
Him that made and directs all things. 

28. Depravity evinced by formidable opposition 
to the progress of religion^ and relentless p)ersecution 
of the witnesses to the truth in successive ages. — 
Through a vast space of past time, there has been 
only a most diminutive number on the whole earth, 
of such as truly knew, and feared, and served God. 
And during periods in which they have been a some- 
what more perceptible portion of the race, think how 
the world has often treated them ; as if they were 
foreigners and intruders, occupying a place to which 
they had no right. A very considerable portion of 
the history of the world, is a record of the persecu- 
tions that have raged against them. Monarchs, with 
the co-operation of their counsellors, captains, priests, 
and the ignorant brutish multitude, have ever sought 
to make it a chief distinction and glory of their reigns 
that they zealously endeavored the destruction of 
the saints of the Most High. . . . The malignity of hu- 
man nature, has appeared tenfold malignant when 
vented in the direction of hostility to true religion. 
It has then glared out a fiend, delighting and luxu- 
riating in savage barbarity. 
10 



110 poster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER V. 

VIEWS OF CHRISTIANITY. ITS DOCTRINES AND AP- 
PLICATIONS. 

1. Compendiousnessofthe Christian scheme. — There 
is a sublime economy of invisible realities. There 
is the Supreme Existence, an infinite and eternal 
Spirit. There are spiritual existences, that have 
kindled into brightness and povi^er, from nothing, at 
his creating will. There is a universal government, 
omnipotent, all-wise, and righteous, of that Supreme 
Being over the creation. There is the immense tribe 
of human spirits, in a most peculiar and alarming pre- 
dicament, held under eternal obligation of conformity 
to a law proceeding from the holiness of that Being, 
but perverted to a state of disconformity to it, and 
opposition to him. Next, there is a signal anomaly 
of moral government, the constitution of a new state 
of relation between the Supreme Grovernor and this 
alienated race, through a Mediator, who makes an 
atonement for human iniquity, and stands represent- 
ative before Almighty Justice, for those who in grate- 
ful accordance to the mysterious appointment con- 
sign themselves to his charge. There are the several 
doctrines declaratory of this new constitution through 
all its parts There is the view of religion in its op- 
erative character, or the doctrine of the application 
of its truths and precepts by a divine agency to 
transform the mind and rectify the life. And this 
solemn array of all the sublimest reality, and most 
important intelligepie, is extending infinitely away 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. Ill 

beyond the sensible horizon of our present state to 
an invisible world, to which the spirits of men pro- 
ceed at death for judgment and retribution, and with 
the prospect of living for ever. 

2. Salvation hy the law impossible. — The plan by 
the law was evidently an utterly ruined plan ; it could 
not save one ; it could only condemn to perish. If 
men were to be saved, and still upon the original 
economy, it was to be independently of the law, and 
in opposition to it. But, independently, and in op- 
position ! Who would make them independent 1 
Who would bear them harmless in that opposition 1 
If the divine goodness in the form of mercy would 
do it — what became of the divine goodness in the 
form of righteousness 1 Should the rebellious crea- 
tures utterly violate and demolish the economy of 
justice, and come triumphant out of its ruin as hav- 
ing forced the Supreme Governor to the bare ex- 
pedient of mercy % 

3. A Savior unajypreciated without acknowledg- 
ment of sin. — While man is not considered as lost, 
the mind can not do justice to the expedient, or to 
" the only name under heaven," by which he can be re- 
deemed. Accordingly the gift of Jesus Christ does 
not appear to be habitually recollected as the most 
illustrious instance of the beneficence of God that has 
ever come to human knowledge, and as the single 
fact which, more than all others, has relieved the 
awfulness of the mystery in which our world is en- 
veloped. Nothankful joy seems to beam forth at the 
thought of so mighty an interposition, and of him who 
was the agent of it. 

4. Necessity of atonement. — Think intently on the 
malignant nature of sin ; and if there be truth in God, 
it is inexpressibly odious to him. Then, if neverthe- 
less, such sinners are to be pardoned, does it not 
eminently comport with the divine holiness — is it not 
due to it — that in the veiy medium of their pardon, 



112 Foster's thoughts. 

there should be some signal and awful act of a judi- 
cial and penal kind to record and render memorable 
for ever a righteous God's judgment — estimate of that 
which he pardons % 

5. Comfortahle reliance ufon the atonement. — With 
this self-condemning review, and with nothing but 
an uncertain and possibly small remainder of life in 
prospect, how. emphatically oppressive would be the 
conscious situation, if there were not that great pro- 
pitiation, that redeeming sacrifice, to rest upon for 
pardon and final safety. 

6. A divine liberator from the prejudices and pas- 
sions of depravity necessary. — Many are in subjection 
to their appetites ; many to the most foolish, many to 
the most vicious passions. Now to them, what an 
inconsiderable good is their political liberty, as com- 
pared with the evil of this slavery ! and yet, amid it 
all, there is the self-complacency, the j)ride, the boast- 
ing of freedom ! 

Take another exemplification. A high-spirited 
man in very indejDendent circumstances, with confi- 
dence and self-sufficiency conspicuous on his front ; 
in numberless cases he can and will do as he pleases ; 
he has the means of commanding deference and ob- 
sequiousness, defies and spurns interference and op- 
position ; and says "I am free !" For all this, per- 
haps, he is but the stronger slave. All the while, 
his whole mind and moral being may be utterly ser- 
vile to some evil passion, some corrupt purpose, some 

vain interest, some tyrannic habit The mass of 

mankind are enslaved. The cool, sagacious, philo- 
sophic observer thinks so. The devout Christian 
observer thinks so. The illuminated dying estimator 
thinks so. And all the real friends of our race would 
unite to implore that the truth might come to perform 
its mighty work ; or, in other words, that the glorious 
Agent of human deliverance, the Son of God would 
come and accomplish that work by means of '* the 



DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. 113 

truth." .... If we would form a notion quite com- 
prehensive of what may be regarded as placing and 
keeping men's minds in an enslaved state, we should 
include ignorance and all error t|'irougli which they 
receive injury, together with all perversion in the 
passions, and all that perverts them. Now against 
all this in its full breadth, truth, universal truth, is op- 
posed ; and the effectual application of truth would 

counteract and reverse it all Here is the grand 

and urgent occasion for the Spirit of God to work — 
to transfuse a new and redeeming principle through 
the moral being, and then the man is free ! The 
freed spirit feels that a hateful, direful enchantment 
is broken, and flies to its God. 

7. Mystery of the origin of evil. — We must con- 
fess we should think that the less use is made in reli- 
gion the better, of philosophizings which are precipi- 
tate toward that black abyss. It really would appear 
to us, that abstract reasonings on will, and power, 
and accountableness, in relation to man, can afford 
no assistance, none, toward the fundamental removal 
of theological difficulties ; and that the only resource, 
in a matter like that to which we have been advert- 
ing, is in a simple submissive acceptance of the dic- 
tates, and adherence to the practice, of the inspired 
teachers, and of their Teacher. 

8. Technical terms should be used sparingly in dis- 
tinguishing Christian doctrines. — Technical terms 
have been the lights of science, but, in many instan- 
ces, the shades of religion. 

9. Gospel demeaned by bigoted interpreters. — You 
might often meet with a systematic writer, in whose 
hands the whole wealth, and variety, and magnifi- 
cence, of revelation, shrink into a meager list of doc- 
trinal points, and who will let no verse in the Bible 
say a syllable till it has placed itself under one of 
them. You may meet with a Christian polemic, who 
seems to value the arguments for evangelical truth 

10* 



114 poster's thoughts. 

as an assassin values his dagger, and for the same 
reason ; with a descanter on the invisible world, who 
makes you think of a popish cathedral, and from the 
vulgarity of whose illuminations you are excessively 
glad to escape into the solemn twilight of faith ; or 
with a grim zealot for a theory of the Divine attri- 
butes, which seems to delight in representing the 
Deity as a dreadful king of furies, whose dominion 
is overshaded with vengeance, whose music is the 
cries of victims, and whose glory requires to be illus- 
trated by the ruin of his creation. 

10. Ignorance and higotry in CJiristian profession. 
- — Some people's religion is for want of sense ; if they 
had this, they would have no religion, for their reli- 
gion is no more than prejudice — superstition. 

1 1. Specimen of a religious bigot. — [Said of a nar- 
row-minded religionist.] Mr. T, sees religion, not as 
a sphere, but as a line ; and it is the identical line in 
which he is moving. He is like an African buffalo — 
sees right forward, but nothing on the right hand or 
the left. He would not perceive a legion of angels 
or of devils at the distance of ten yards, on the one 
side or the other. 

12. Coicardice of higoted errorists. — When the 
majestic form of Truth approaches, it is easier for a 
disino^enuous mind to start aside into a thicket till 
she is past, and then reappearing, say, " It was not 
Truth," than to meet her, and bow, and obey. 

13. The lines of revelation and true philosophy 
coalesce and become identical. — Theology and philos- 
ophy have been entirely separated by most divines, 
and some have attempted an awkward association of 
them ; they joined them without producing unity or 
union. All the emanations of both ought to converge 
to one focus ; and thence, combined and identified, 
dart forward, a living beam of light, in infinitum. 

14. Metaphors of Scripture should not be forced to 
an undue application. — It is degrading to spiritual 



DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. 115 

ideas to be extensively and systematically transmuted, 
I might say cooked, into sensual ones. The analogy 
between meaner things and dignified ones should 
never be pursued further than one or two points of 
necessary illustration ; for if it is traced to every cir- 
cumstance in which a resemblance can be found or 
fancied, the meaner thing no longer serves the hum- 
ble and useful purpose of merely illustrating some 
qualities of the great one, but becomes formally its 
representative and equal. By their being made to 
touch at all points, the meaner is constituted a scale 
to measure and to limit the magnitude of the superior, 
and thus the importance of the one shrinks to the in- 
siofnificance of the other. 

15. The character and offices of Christ better dis- 
ting%dshed hy the language of Scripture than of creeds. 
— As to my opinion respecting the j)erson of Christ, 
I deem' it the wisest rule to use j^^^cisely the language 
of scripture, without charging myself with a definite, 
a sort of mathematical hypothesis, and the intermina- 
ble perplexities of explication and inference. 

16. Want of discrimination in distinguishing the 
righteous and the wicked. — Have you not had a sense 
of extreme absurdity, in hearing or reading some re- 
ligious teachers, rejDresenting two classes as complete 
antipodes, without regard to discrimination and de- 
grees 1 Let a carnal, unconverted man be described, 
and the character consists of the whole account of 
human depravity. But let them describe a convert- 
ed man, and there is just the entire reverse. But 
where is the man that will dare to present himself as 
this complete reverse % 

Yi . Deep sense of unwor thin ess p^'^ojjer to the most 
moral — even the young, — That such a mind should 
feel any violent sense of guilt, or overwhelming ter- 
rors of Divine justice, it would be out of all consis- 
tency to expect or require. But I am anxious that 
he should feel an impressive general conviction of a 



116 poster's thoughts. 

depraved and unworthy nature, and the necessity of 
pardon and reconciliation through Jesus Christ ; that 
he should especially be sensible of the evil and guilt 
of a deficient love and devotion to God, and of the 
indisposition to apply the thoughts, desires, and ear- 
nest efforts, to the grand business of life. This order 
of conviction and solicitude I wish and pray that he 
may feel, and then, after a life so nearly blameless, 
in a j^ractical view, I should be greatly consoled and 
assured. 

18. Salvation hy foAtli in Jesus Christ. — Repose 
your soul, with all its interests and hopes, on that 
perfect work of our Lord and Savior. It is a com- 
plete salvation for you to rely upon, independent of 
any virtues, and in triumph over conscious and la- 
mented sins in your own nature. It is expressly as 
being unable to attain virtues and grace to satisfy the 
Divine law and an enlightened conscience — exactly 
AS being conscious of defect and sin which you con- 
demn and deplore — it is in this very character and 
condition that you are to embrace the salvation ac- 
complished through the sufferings of the Redeemer. 
And it comes to you in a Divine fullness which par- 
dons all sin, and needs no virtues of your own for 
your acceptance before the righteous Judge. It sets 
aside at once all that you can attain, and all that you 
condemn, in yourself and of your own, and gives you 
a blessed acquittance on another ground. It makes no 
stipulation or previous condition for some certain es- 
tablished degrees of one virtuous principle or another 
in your soul. It tells you that all the degrees of all 
the virtues are equally incompetent and foreign to 
the great purpose, and invites and conjures you to 
cast yourself wholly on the all-sufficiency of Him in 
whom all fullness of merit and righteousness dwells. 
It avowedly takes you as defective and sinful, not- 
withstanding all that you labor and strive, and says, 
" Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away sin." 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 117 

How constantly, through the New Testament, is it 
represented that this committing of the soul to the 
merciful and exalted Savior, jiist as it is, with all its 
conscious weakness, incapacity, and self-condemna- 
tion, is the grand point of safety and immortal hope, 
is the escape from the oppression of guilt and the 
fear of death ! 

19. Uniform v-se of j^cculiar pJirases in the loulpit 
not desirable. — Such common words as have acquired 
an affected cast in theological use, might give place 
to the other common words which express the ideas 
in a plain and unaffected manner ; and the phrases 
formed of common words uncouthly combined may 
be dismissed. Many peculiar and antique words 
might be exchanged for other single words, of equiv- 
alent signification, and in general use. And the small 
number of peculiar terms acknowledged and estab- 
lished as of permanent use and necessity, might, even 
separately from the consideration of modifying the 
diction, be often, with advantage to the explicit dec- 
laration and clear comprehension of Christian truth, 
made to give place to a fuller expression, in a num- 
ber of common words, of those ideas of which these 
peculiar terms are the single signs. 

20, Existence and 7ninistry of angels. — No fact be- 
yond the limits of our world is more prominent in 
the declarations of the Bible, than the existence of a 
high order of intelligences denominated angels. The 
equivocal and the lower aj^plication of the term in a 
number of instances can deduct nothing from the 
palpable evidence of the fact. But who and what 
are angels % The effect of an assemblage of pas- 
sages relating to them in the Bible, the desciiptions, 
narratives, and allusions, would seem to give an idea 
widely different from that of stationary residents in 
particular parts of the creation — an idea, rather, of 
pei-petual ministerial agency, in a diversified distri- 
bution of appointments, many of them occasional and 



\ 



118 poster's thoughts. 

temporary, in tlie fulfilment of which numbers of 
them visit or sojourn in this world. 

21. Rank and sj^here of angels. — If we take our 
conjecture of the intellectual magnitude, and the 
probable excursive powers of the highest of the 
created beings, from the consideration of the infinite 
power and beneficence of the Creator, and of what 
it is rationally probable that such a Being M^ould 
create in the nature of mental existences, to admire, 
adore, and serve him, we shall be warranted to im- 
agine beings to whom it may be possible exultingly 
to leave sunbeams far behind them in the rapidity 
of their career, from systems to systems still beyond. 
And if we add to the account the equal probability 
of a perpetual augmentation of their powers in a ratio 
correspondent to a magnitude already so stupendous, 
and crown it with the idea of an indefatigable exer- 
tion of those powers in discovery and contemplation 
of the Creator's manifestations through everlasting 
ages — there will then be required a universe to which 
all that the telescope has descried is but as an atom ; 
a universe of which it shall not be within the possi- 
hilities of any intelligence less than the Infinite to 
know — 

" Where rears the terminating pillar high 
Its extramundane head." 

22. Kingdom of God on earth and in heaven con- 
nected hy vital syvipathies. — The kingdom of God 
on earth is in real and vital connexion with his king- 
dom in heaven ! So that there is — shall we say it — 
a sympathy between them; so that where a saint is 
smitten on earth, there is, as it were, a sensation con- 
veyed to the upper sky. The Lord of saints and an- 
gels says, " Saul, why persecutest thou me ]" a strange 
expression of the union of the king of glory, and his 
humble mortal friends. 

23. Inefficiency of mere means. — These means are 
indeed of divine appointment, and to a certain extent 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 119 

are accompanied by a special divine agency. But 
how far this agency accompanies them is seen in the 
measure of their success. Where that stands ar- 
rested, the fact itself is the proof that the superior 
operation does not go further with these means. 
There it stops, and leaves them to accomplish, if they 
can, what remains. And oh, what remains ] If the 
general transformation of mankind into such persons 
as could be justly deemed true disciples of Christ, 
were regarded as the object of his religion, how 
mysteriously small a part of that object has this di- 
vine agency ever yet been exerted to accomplish ! 
And then, the awful and immense remainder evinces 
the inexpressible imbecility of the means, when left 

to be applied as a mere human administration 

Probably each religious teacher can recollect, besides 
his general experience, very particular instances, in 
which he has set himself to exert the utmost force 
of his mind, in reasoning, illustration, and serious ap- 
peal, to impress some one important idea, on some 
one class of persons to whom it was most specifically 
applicable ; and has perceived the plainest indica- 
tions, both at the instant and immediately after, that 
it was an attempt of the same kind as that of demol- 
ishing a tower by attacking it with pebbles. Nor do 
I need to observe how generally, if a momentary im- 
pression is made, it is forgotten the following hour. 

24. Melancholy musings in the direction oj^ fatal- 
ism. — One seems to see all how it is to be, as to one's 
friends, as to one^s self. Unfortunate habits have 
been formed, and threaten to reign till death. In- 
struction, truth, just reach the heart to fall ineffica- 
cious. One augurs the sequel from the first part ; 
as in a commonplace novel, one can see from the 
first chapter what is to happen forward to the close. 

25. In its fortification of depraved dispositions and 
circumstances, the soul defies any assault of mere hu- 
man power. — Surely the human mind, quenched as 



120 poster's thoughts. 

it is in a body, with all that body's sensations, is not 
a thing to be worked upon by the presentation of 
truth ! How little, in general, it thinks or cares about 
the whole displayed firmament of trutlj, with all its 
constellations. No ! the case of mankind is desper- 
ate, unless a continual miracle interpose. 

26. Vain confidence in human agency. — If what they 
deem the cause of truth and justice advances with a 
splendid front of distinguished names of legislators, 
or patriots, or military heroes, it must then and must 
therefore triumph ; nothing can withstand such tal- 
ents, accompanied by the zeal of so many faithful 
adherents. If these shining insects of fame are 
ciTished, or sink into the despicable reptiles of cor- 
ruption, alas, then, for the cause of truth and justice ! 

27. Effects disjiroportionate to any hnoicn order 
of means, may he necessary to the universal triumph oj 
the gospel. — Perhaps it is not improbable, that the 
grand moral improvements of the future age may be 
accomplished in a manner that shall leave nothing to 
man but humility and grateful adoration. His pride 
so obstinately ascribes to himself whatever good is 
effected on the globe, that perhaps the Deity will 
evince his own interposition, by events as evidently 
independent of human power as the rising of the sun. 
It may be that some of them may take place in a 
manner but little connected even with human 023era- 
tion. Or if the activity of men shall be employed as 
the means of producing all of them, there will proba- 
bly be as palpable a disproportion between the instru- 
ments and the events, as there was between the rod 
of Moses and the stupendous phenomena which fol- 
lowed its being stretched forth. 

28. Triumph of the truth through the gospel. — I 
have the most confident faith that the empire of truth, 
advancing under a far mightier agency than mere 
philosophic inquiry, is appointed to irradiate the lat- 
ter ages of a dark and troubled world ; and, on the 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 121 

Strength of proplietic intimations, I anticipate its 
coming sooner, by at least a thousand centuries, than 
a disciple of that philosophy which rejects revelation, 
as the first proud step toward the improvement of 
the world, is warranted, by a view of the past and 
present state of mankind, to predict. 

29. Inadequate view of the social application of 
Christianity . — Christianity is to be honored some- 
what after the same manner as the Lama of Thibet. 
It is to stay in its temple, to have the proprieties of 
homage duly preserved within its precincts, but to be 
exempted (in reverence of its sanctity) from all cog- 
nizance of great public affairs, even in the points 
where they most interfere with or involve its inter- 
ests. It could show, perhaps, in what manner the 
administration of those affairs injures these interests; 
but it would degrade its sacred character by talking 
of any such matter. But Christianity must have 
leave to decline the sinister compliment of such pre- 
tended anxiety to preserve it immaculate. As to its 
sacred character, it can venture that, on the strength 
of its intrinsic quality and of its own guardianship, 
while, regardless of the limits thus attempted in mock 
reverence to be prescribed, it steps in a censorial 
capacity on what will be called a political ground, 
so far as to take account of what concern has been 
shown, or what means have been left disposable, for 
operations to promote the grand essentials of human 
welfare, by that public system which has gi-asped and 
expended the strength of the community. 

30. Am enahility of statesmen. — So long as men are 
pressing as urgently into the avenues of place and 
power, as ever the genteel rabble of the metropolis 
have pushed and crowded into the playhouse to see 
the new actor, and so long as a most violent conflict 
is maintained between those who are in power and 
those who want to supplant them, we think statesmen 
form by eminence the classof persons to whose char- 

11 



122 Foster's thoughts. 

acters both the contemporary examiner and the his- 
torian are not only authorized, but in duty bound, to 
administer justice in its utmost rigor, without one par- 
ticle of extenuation. . . . They have stronger induce- 
ments, arising from their situation, than other men, 
to be solicitous for the rectitude of their conduct; 
their station has the utmost advantage for command- 
ing the assistance of whatever illumination a country 
contains ; they see, on the large scale, the effect of 
all the grand principles of action ; they make laws 
for the rest of mankind, and they direct the execu- 
tion of justice. If the eternal laws of morality are 
to be applied with a soft and lenient hand in the trial 
and judgment of such an order of men, it will not be 
worth while to apply them at all to the subordinate 
classes of mankind; as a morality that exacts but lit- 
tle, where the means and the responsibility are the 
greatest, would betray itself to contempt by pre- 
tending to sit in solemn judgment on the humbler 
subjects of its authoi'ity. The laws of morality 
should operate, like those of Nature, in the most 
palpable manner on the largest substances. 

31. Tendency to reform. — At all events, it is inex- 
pressibly gratifying, on the ground of religion, phil- 
anthropy, and all views of improvement, to observe 
the prominent characteristic of our times ; a mohiUty^ 
a tendency to alteration, a shaking, and cracking, 
and breaking up of the old condition of notions and 
things ; an exploding of the principle, that things are 
to be maintained because they are ancient and estab- 
lished. Even that venerable humbug called '^' our 
admirable constitution' has suffered woful assault and 
battery by this recent transaction. This thing, the 
" constitution," has been commonly regarded, and 
talked, and written of (and was so talked of by the 
opposition in the late debates), as if it were some- 
thing almost o^ divine origin^ as if it had been deliv- 
ered like the law from the mount, as a thing perfect, 



DOCTRINES OP CHRISTIANITY. 123 

permanent, sacred, and inviolable. But now we 
have it practically shown, that one of its corners may 
be demolished without ceremony (Holy Temple 
though it has been accounted), when the benefit of 
the community requires an innovation ; and there- 
fore so may any other corner or portion of it, v/hen 
the same cause shall demand. 

32. The elevation of the race ]Jossible through wise 
institutions and statesmen. — Every day struck with 
the wretched and barbarous appearance, and the 
coarse manners of the populace. (This was, I be- 
lieve, in Lancashire.) How most astonishing that 
the Creator should have placed so many millions of 
the creatures he has endowed with noble faculties 
(or the seeds of them), in situations where these fac- 
ulties and the whole being are inevitably debased! 
Wonder again what really could be done by political 
institutions managed by a Bonaparte in morals. I 
can not, will not, believe that all must necessarily 
he thus. 

33. Progressive amelioration of the condition of the 
race through the applications of Christianity. — Have 
been a thousand times struck, and very forcibly this 
morning, with the miserable, degraded, and almost 
revolting appearance, of the visages, both in features 
and expression, of the lowest rank of the poor, es- 
pecially when old. Oh, how little is made of the hu- 
man species in dignity, refinement, knowledge, and 
happiness, in comparison with what they might be- 
come, under the influence of good institutions — of 
education — of religion, and a state of society which 
should easily secure a competence without so much 
labor ! 

34. Timid conservatism. — I have heard a good ma- 
ny of them talk of the subject ; and what they say is, 
that the "Review" dares nothing; that its highest 
ambition seems to be to do no harm ; that it takes the 
style of a puritan divine in some instances where that 



124 poster's thoughts. 

of Voltaire would be better ; that it is too anxious to 
preserve a quiet impunity under the wings of ortho- 
doxy and loyalty ; that it is like a dog that has been 
whipped, and therefore but just ventures to growl, 
and then runs away. 

35. Jurisdiction of civil law may he restricteSj hy 
conscience. — An opponent maintained that I ought to 
contribute to the execution of every law of the state 
I live in, even though I disapprove some of those 
laws in my private judgment. Denied. How can 
such obligation come 1 It is confessed, in the first 
instance, that in general my own judgment and con- 
science form the supreme law. Then, i? one man as- 
sumes to interfere with the dictates of my own mind, 
and enjoins me a course of action opposite to my con- 
victions, I spurn the assumption. But so I do like- 
wise if tioo men thus dictate in opposition to my moral 
sense, li three men do this, I do still the same. If 
five hundred, if a thousand, if ten thousand, I still do 
the same, and deem that duty binds me to do so. I 
ask these, " What is this thing you call a state ? 
what is that moral authority assumed by it over my 
conscience, if it merely consists of these same men 
whom individually, and in the accumulation of an 
indefinite number, I have already refused to obey?" 

36. Individual anticipathig and embracing social 
reform. — The mind of a reflective man ought, in re- 
spect of changes, to be beforehand with the world — 
to have first achieved each important reform within 
itself, and to be able to say to other men, " Follow 
me!" 

37. Ceremonial of ordination liable to be unduly 
tnagnified among dissenters. — In saying all this, I 
beg you not to take me as if I were making any very 
grave matter of the thing — as if I fancied this little 
rag of hierarchy infected with the i^lague, and capable 
of infusing some mighty mischief into our religious 
constitution. I merely think it would better comport 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 125 

with good sense, and with religious simplicity as the 
dissenters' jDrofession, to abandon such a ceremonial. 

3 8 . Church independence, distinguished from nation- 
al establishments. — The dissenters' system (as far as 
they can have anything that can be so named) is sim- 
ply to teach and preach religion to such as choose 
to be taught, forming voluntary societies, and in all 
ways and senses supporting themselves, in point of 
expenses and everything else, ... It is the very man- 
ner in which Christianity was originally propagated 
in the world. How else should or can it be propa- 
gated ? It is an immensely different thing to have a 
secular establishment, shaped, richly endowed, and 
supported by the state — a profane and profligate king 
acknowledged as head of this church, a power in the 
government (often a most irreligious set of men) to 
decree the doctrines and observances of religion — a 
set of wealthly and lordly archbishops and bishops — 
the institution — constantly made an engine of state 
— furnished with a clergy to whom personal religion 
is no prerequisite, and many of them signing articles 
which they do not believe — constituted in a way to 
produce ambition, sycophancy to power, and arro- 
gance toward the people — to say not a word of the 
vast and horrid history of persecution, the principle 
of which is inherent in such an invention, and which 
has made the hierarchy about the blackest spectacle 
in the retrospect of the Christian era. 

39. Malorganization of national estahlishments evin- 
ced by failure to accomplish their proposed ends. — If 
the practical working of an institution be generally, 
predominantly, through successive ages and all the 
change of times and circumstances, renegade from 
the primary intention, this would seem to betray that 
there must be, in the very construction itself essen- 
tially, a strong propensity and aptitude to corruption ; 
that a good design has been committed to the action 
of a wrong machinery for making it effective ; that 

11* 



126 poster's thoughts. 

tlie instrument intended for the use of a good spirit, 
is found commodiously fitted to the hand of a darker 
agent. 

I am not, you will observe, expressing any opinion 
on the abstract question of the necessity or possible 
advantage of a religious establishment, but comment- 
ingf on the actual church establishment of this coun- 
try. Now, then, I would say to you, with deference, 
take an impartial view of the English church, through 
a duration of nearly two centuries, and at the present 
time. You well know that, with all its amplitude of 
powers and means — its many thousands of consecra- 
ted teachers, of all degrees — its occupancy of the 
whole country — its prescriptive hold on the people's 
veneration — its learning, its emoluments, and its in- 
timate connexion with all that was powerful in the 
state — it did, through successive generations, leave 
the bulk of the population, for whose spiritual bene- 
fit it was appointed, in the profoundest ignorance of 
what you consider as the only genuine Christianity. 

40. Adequate reformation of a 7iational church es- 
tahlishvient mipossihle. — As an economical thing, a 
trade and money concern, it may be plentifully mend- 
ed if the axe and saw, and carpenter's rule, be reso- 
lutely applied (which I do not expect) ; but as an eccle- 
siastical institution, an institution for religion, it is not 
worth reforming ; indeed, can not be refcjrmed. Think 
of making the clergy — such a clergy as the reform- 
project declares them to be — think of making them 
pious, zealous, spiritual, apostolic, hy act of parlia- 
ment I There is, for example, the scandalous amount 
of non-residence ; this is to be corrected with a strong 
hand ; the clergy shall be compelled to reside : what 
clergy shall be so compelled "? why, the very men 
whose non-residence proved they do not care about 
the spiritual welfare of the people ; but only force 
these same men, by a law, sadly against their will, 
as the very term.s imply, and then they will instantly 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 127 

hecoine pious, faithful, affectionate pastors — an un- 
speaJcahle blessing to the people of every parish ! They 
will apply themselves, with the utmost alacrity and 
assiduity, to their preaching, praying, visiting the 
sick, &c., at the very time that they are grumbling 
and cursing at not being any longer allowed to prom- 
enade about Brighton or Cheltenham. The most ri- 
diculous absurdity comes of that one grand corrup- 
tion of Christianity — the state pretending to make 
religious churches and Christian teachers. 

41. Certainty of the prevalence of the simpler and 
true order of Christianity. — And dissent, you may 
be sure, will continue to extend, in whatever propor- 
tion true religion and free-thinking shall do so, to 
the ultimate abolition of that anti-Christian nuisance, 
the established church. 

42. Efficiency of independency. — I have heard it 
alleged, that however it might fare with the people 
in the towns and the districts, thickly inhabited, the 
rural tracts, with a scanty population, would be left 
in a total destitution of relig^ious advantas^es. Did 
the foretellers of this consequence ever traverse any 
considerable part of Wales, where they would see an 
almost endless succession of meeting-houses, in tracts 
where a few humble-looking habitations, scattered 
over a wide neighborhood, give immediate evidence 
of a thin population and the absence of wealth I And, 
if I am not much misinformed, such proofs of the pro- 
ductive activity of the " dissenting interest," as it is 
called, have begun to appear in scores, or rather hun- 
dreds, of the thinly-inhabited districts of England ; a 
representation confirmed by the frequent complaints 
of clergymen in such localities, that their parishes are 
becoming deformed by such spectacles — "nuisances," 
in the language of some of them ; "schism-shops" is 
the denomination I have oftenest heard. The means 
for raising these edifices have been contributed by 
the liberality of dissenting communities at a distance, 



128 Foster's thoughts. 

for the most part, from the places themselves. And, 
according to my information, the religious services, 
in many of them, are kept up gratuitously, in con- 
sideration of the poverty of the rural attendants, by 
extra labors of ministers in the nearest situations, as- 
sisted by zealous and intelligent religious laymen, 
possessing and cultivating a faculty for public speak- 

43. Inefficiency of national cliurch estahlisTiments . 
— Dissent, as argued and practised by the whole 
school of our most venerated teachers and examples, 
has been founded on the plain principle that making 
religion a part of the state, is anti-Christian in theory 
and noxious in practice. With consenting voice they 
vrould have denied any one to he a dissenter w^ho did 
not hold this doctrine, and desire, in obvious consis- 
tency, the abolition of all secular religious establish- 
ments. Latterly, all this seems to have been forgot- 
ten — very much from the want of instruction, and 
consequent want of thought, about the real nature 
and reason of dissent. But I am of the old school — 
at the same time not caring very much how little the 
people understand about the theory of the matter, 
provided religion and practical dissent be making 
progress. The fundamental principle of dissent is, 
that the religion of Chiist ought to be left to make 
its way among mankind in the greatest possible sim- 
plicity, by its truth and excellence ; and through the 
labors of sincere and pious advocates, under the pre- 
siding care of its great Author ; and that it can not, 
without fatal injury to that pure simplicity, that charac- 
ter of being a " kingdom not of this world," be taken 
into the schemes and political arrangements of mon- 
archs and statesmen, and implicated inseparably with 
all the secular interests, intrigues, and passions. It 
is self-evident it must thus become a sharer in state 
corruptions, an engine of state acted on, and in its 
turn acting with, every bad influence belonging so 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 129 

almost universally to courts, governments, and ambi- 
tious parties of worldly men. It might beforehand 
be pronounced infallibly, that this unhallowed com- 
bination must result in the debasement of religion, 
and in mischief to the best interests of mankind. But 
from this presumption a 2>rioJ'i, turn to the matter of 
fact, as exhibited through the long course of the Chris- 
tian era. I have latterly been looking a little into ec- 
clesiastical history, at different perio<ls ; and should, 
from what I have seen there, have acquired, had it 
been possible, an augmented intensity of detestation 
of hierarchies and secular establishments of religion. 
There is the whole vast and direful plague of the 
pojnsh hierarchy. But placing that out of view, 
look at our own protestant establishment. What was 
its spirit and influence during the long period of the 
sufferings of the puritans ? What was its spirit even 
in the time of Queen Anne ? Then follow it down 
through a subsequent century. What did it do for 
the people of England 1 There was one wide, settled 
Egyptian darkness ; the blind leading the blind, all 
but universally ; an utter estrangement from genuine 
Christianity ; ten thousand Christian ministers mis- 
leading the people in respect to religious notions, and 
a vast proportion of them setting them a bad practi- 
cal example. When at length something of the true 
light began to dawn — when Whitefield and Wesley 
came forth — who were their most virulent opposers, 
even instigating and abetting the miserable people to 
riot, fury, and violence, against them % The estab- 
lished clergy. At a later time, who were the most con- 
stant systematic opposers of an improved education of 
the common people 1 The established clergy. Who 
frustrated, so lately. Brougham's national plan for 
this object ? The clergy, who insisted that they should 
have a monopoly of the power in its management. 
Who formed the main mass of the opposition to the 
Bible Society for so many years ? Did one single dis- 



130 Foster's thoughts. 

senter so act 1 No ; tlie clergy. Who, lately, did all 
they could, by open opposition or low intrigue, to 
frustrate the valuable project for education in our 
own city ] The clergy. Who were the most gener- 
ally hostile to the catholic emancipation, undeterred 
by the prospect of prolonged tumult, and ultimate 
civil war, ravage, and desolation, in Ireland % The 
clergy. What is, at this very hour, the most fatal and 
withering blight on the interests and hopes of the 
protestant religion in that country? The estahlished 
church. 

44. Indictment against the national estahlishment. 
— hnj)ossihility of its reform. — This slight series 
of notices affords but a faint and measrer hint of the 
large and awful indictment against the established 
church. And that indictment is, by the whole school 
of the able advocates of dissent on j^rinciple, charged 
in this form, namely : that such are the natural effects 
of a secidar church estahlishment — not accidental evils 
of an institution fmdamentally good. And this should, 
I think, be as evident as any possible instance of 
cause and effect. Consider, what is the patronage of 
the church % For one large portion, it is in the hands 
of the state, of the ministry — men most commonly ig- 
norant and careless of religion, and only consulting 
secular and political interests. It is in the piivate 
hands of great lords and great squires of colleges and 
corporations. No small proportion of it is a matter 
of direct traffic in the market, like farms or any other 
commodity. So many thousand pounds for a " cure 
of souls .'" Consider, again, that young men (a vast 
majority of those who enter the church) enter as on 
a profession or trade, and a thing which places them 
on a genteel footing in society. The church is the 
grand receptacle, too, for secondary branches of the 
upper sort of families. Many latterly are from the 
army and navy. Consider, that personal piety is 
not, nor by the nature of the institution can be, any 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 131 

indispensable prerequisite. Who or what is there to 
require any such thing, or to judge of any such thing 1 
The candidate passes through a few formalities, and 
it is done. And if the parishioners receive a man 
who is most evidently destitute of any such qualifica- 
tion — receive him as their instructor, consoler, and 
example — they have no remedy. They must be con- 
tent; they can not remove him; and the church, and 
even the evangelical clergy, censure them if they pre- 
sume to go to hear instead a pious and sensible 
preacher in a meeting-house in their neighborhood. 
We affirm, then, that this fearful mass and variety of 
evil consistently, and for the main part necessarily, 
result from the very nature of an established church; 
and are not accidental and separable; and that there- 
fore the thing is radically and fundamentally bad, and 
pernicious to religion. If one hears talk of correct- 
ing it, making it a good thing by " reform" — one in- 
stantly says, ^' How correct it? Can you make kings, 
ministers of state, lord chancellors, to becom.e pious 
and evangelical men ? Can you convert the whole 
set of patrons — lords, baronets, squires, corporations 1 
Can you work such a miracle in Oxford and Cam- 
bridge, that they shall fit out no young gents for the 
church, but such as give proofs of personal piety ; or 
make the bishops such overseers that they shall allow 
none to go into the fold but such as bear the evident 
qualifications for the shepherds of the flock ? Can 
you secure tliat, when advowsons are advertised for 
sale, none but religious men shall buy or bid for 
them 1" Even if all this were not essentially and 
flagrantly impossible — if it might be brought about 
S07ne time — I would say, " How long, meanwhile, are 
the people, myriads and millions of them, to be left 
to be misled in the most momentous of their inter- 
ests by multitudes of authorized teachers, who teach 
them not the gospel ? How many of these multi- 
tudes and myriads can we contentedly resign to live 



132 Foster's thoughts. 

and die under the delusion that a little middling: mo- 
rality (honesty chiefly), with the aid of the Christian- 
izing sprinkle of water, the confiiTnation, and the 
talismanic sacrament at last, will carry them to heav- 
en ]" There is, besides, something strange and ra- 
ther ludicrous in the notion of correcting what is it- 
self appointed to be, and assumes to be, the grand 
corrector. There is a class of persons highly author- 
ized, ordained, and officially appointed, to instruct, 
illuminate, and reform, the community; the commu- 
nity, wiser than their teachers, are to pity them, in- 
struct them, get them reformed, and tlien go to them 
for " instruction and correction in righteousness !" 
A curious round-about process, even if it were prac- 
ticable. 

45. Cavils at the tardy success of missions in In- 
dia. — Do they imagine that Mr. Carey, for instance, 
landed in India with the notion that all who came to 
worship the Ganges, or to burn their mothers or ex- 
pose their children on its banks, one season, were to 
come there, the next, to be baptized '? Or that the 
want of moonlight the half of each month would be 
supplied by the light of Hindoo temples, set on fire 
over the heads of their gods by the recent worship- 
pers all through Hindostan 1 

46. Indiscriminate eulogy over the dead, i7i pre- 
scribed service. — It is obvious how powerful the de- 
praving influence is likely to be on other men, who 
have not the information, the convictions, or the re- 
sponsibility, implied and involved in the sacred pro- 
fession, and who are perhaps half- vicious and half- 
skeptical already, if that influence is so strong as to 
make one most learned Christian divine, in a work 
expected and intended to go down to a future age, 
confidently dismiss to those abodes of the blessed 
which Christianity only assures its disciples, the per- 
son whom he has just confessed (we can not honest- 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 133 

ly interpret the passage in any other sense) to be 
not a believer in the truth of that religion. 

47. hi national estahlisJwients, subserviency often 
preferred to talents andjnety. — The archbishop could 
easily tolerate his clergy in being ignorant, careless, 
and profligate, provided they punctiliously observed 
all the prescribed ceremonies ; while he could ap- 
plaud himself for directing the vengeance of the star- 
chamber against the most learned, pious, and zealous 
preachers, that conscientiously declined some part 
of the ceremonial conformity. He chose rather that 
the people should not be instructed in religion at all, 
than be taught it by even the most excellent minis- 
ters, M^ho could not acknowledge a particular ges- 
ture, or robe, or form of words, as an essential part 
of it. Is the established church infallible while its 
members are unable to agree as to the purport of its 
articles, or to the extent of the obli oration under 
which they are to be subscribed, and are indefinitely 
divided and opposed in their opinions, forming a po- 
litical compact, for a temporal advantage, of religious 
parties who are respectively schismatics in each oth- 
er's estimation'? If the infallibility of such a church, 
or indeed of any church, is an absurdity too gross for 
even this man to advance, where is the sense or de- 
cency of railing against sectaries % If the church 
may be wrong, the sectaries, or some of them, may 
be right ; the authority for imputing error is perfect- 
ly equal on either side, and is no other than freedom 
of individual judgment, a freedom evidently not to be 
contravened but by demonstrated infallibity or the 
vilest tyranny. 

48. Romanism characterized. — We can imagine a 
protestant falling into communication with a man 
like Fenelon — charmed with such piety and intelli- 
gence — carried by this feeling back into the popish 
church ; no comprehensive view taken of the real 
character and operations of that church ; no account 

12 



134 Foster's thoughts. 

taken of its essential connexion with secularity and 
ambition — of its general hostility to true religion — 
of the prevailing worthlessness of its priesthood — 
of its wicked assumptions, maxims, and impostures 
— of its infernal persecutions ; and of all this being 
the natural result of its very constitution. 

49. Roinanism has symbolized with heathenism. — 
As the hostility of heathenism, in the direct endeavors 
to extirpate the Christian religion, became evident- 
ly hopeless, in the nations within the Roman empire, 
there was a grand change of the policy of evil ; and 
all manner of reprobate things, heathenism itself 
among them, rushed as by general conspiracy into 
treacherous conjunction with Christianity, retaining 
their own quality under the sanction of its name, and 
by a rapid process reducing it to surrender almost 
everything distinctive of it but that dishonored 
name : and all this under protection of the ** gross 
darkness covering the people." 

50. In Romanism forms have superseded the spirit 
of Christianity. — In this latency of the sacred au- 
thorities, withdrawn from all communication with the 
human understanding, there were retained still many 
of the terms and names belonging to religion. They 
remained, but they remained only such as they could 
be when the departing spirit of that religion was 
leaving them void of their import and solemnity, and 
so rendered applicable to purposes of deception and 
mischief. They were as holy vessels, in which the 
original contents might, as they were escaping, be 
clandestinely replaced by the most malignant prep- 
arations. 

51. Ahsurdity of pretended hereditary holiness. — 
In some instances, an assumption of superior holiness 
has been made upon the ground of belonging to a 
certain division, or class, of mankind ; a class having 
its distinction in the circumstance of descent and na- 
tivity, or, in some artificial constitution of society. 



DOCTRINES OF CHRISTIANITY. 135 

Thus the ancient Jews — in virtue merely of being 
Jews. Imagine the worst Jew comparing himself 
with Aristides, Phocion, or Socrates. The Bramins, 
in virtue of a pretended pre-eminently holy descent; 
an emanation from the head of their creating god. 
In popish countries, the numerous ecclesiastical class. 
Something of this even in protestant England, with- 
in a period not altogether gone beyond remembrance. 
In these instances there has been an assumption of 
holiness independently of individual personal charac- 
ter. Think of such thino;-s as here recounted ! What 
an infamy to perverted human reason, that anything 
which might leave the individual evidently had, in 
heart and life, could yet be taken as constituting hiin 
the reverse of had, that is, holy ! An absurdity par- 
allel to transubstantiation. 

52. Formalism resorted to to ease conscience. — A 
great many people of gayety, rank, and fashion, have 
occasionally a feeling that a little easy quantity of re- 
ligion would be a good thing ; because it is too true, 
after all, that we can not be staying in this world al- 
ways, and when one goes out of it, why, there may 
be some hardish matters to settle in the other place. 
The prayer-book of a Sunday is a good deal to be 
sure toward making all safe, but then it is really so 
tiresome; for penance it is very well, but to say one 
likes it, one can not for the life of one. If there were 
some tolerable religious thing that one could read 
now and then without trouble, and think it about 
half as pleasant as a game of cards, it would be com- 
fortable. 

53. Mummery and mimicry of Romanism. — It 
would be the farthest thing in the world from his 
thoughts in beholding the pageants, the tricks, and 
grimaces, which would meet his view in a popish 
country, that these were exhibited as parts and ap- 
pointments of Christianity. Some of them would 
appear a bad imitation of the opera, and others an 



136 poster's thoughts. 

humble rival of the puppet-show ; the only wonder 
being how any human creatures could perform such 
ridiculous mummeries and antics with such gi'avity 
of face. 

54. Interested apologists for Romanism. — They 
will have it that popery, that infernal pest, is now 
become (if it ever was otherwise) a very tolerably 
good and harmless thing — no intolerance or malignity 
about it now — liberalized by the illuminated age — 
the popish priests the w^orthiest, most amiable, most- 
useful of men. Nay, popery is just as good as any 
other religion, except some small preference for our 
** national establishment." Nothing so impertinent, 
nothing so much to be deprecated and condemned, 
as the idle and mischievous fanaticism of attempting 
to convert papists to protestantism. 

55. Romanism unchangeable. — Does any sensible 
man honestly doubt whether popery be intrinsically 
of the very same spirit that it ever was 1 Does any 
mortal doubt, whether if it were ever to regain an 
ascendency of power, an uncontrolled dominion in 
this country, it would reveal the fiend, and again 
revel in persecution ? When did ever the Romish 
church disavow, in the face of the world, any of its 
former principles, revoke any of its odious decrees, 
or even censure any of the execrable abominations, 
the burnings, the tortures, the massacres, the im- 
postures, perpetrated under its authority ? 

5Q. Ascendency of Romanisin impossible. — What ! 
popery attain to an over-awing power, in spite of the 
rapidly augmenting knowledge and intelligence of 
the people — the almost miraculous diffusion of the 
Bible — the spirit of license, the fearless discussion 
of all subjects — the extension of religion, and of dis- 
sent from all hierarchies — with the settled deep, and 
general prejudice against popery into the bargain — 
and the wealth, power, rank, and influence, nine 
tenth parts of them, on the side of protestantism ? 



DUTIES OP CHRISTIANITY. 137 



CHAPTER VI. 

VIEWS AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE OBLIGATIONS AND 
DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 

1. Indifference to the great moral conflict waging 
in the world, unreasonable. — Alas for the state of 
the senses, of the faculties of apprehension, in those 
minds that have so little cognizance of a most fear- 
ful reality which exists on every side, and presses 
upon them ! How strange it is to see men in pos- 
session of a quick and vigilant faculty for perceiv- 
ing everything that can approach them in hostility, 
except that nearest, deadliest, and mightiest ene- 
my of all, moral evil ! It is a spectacle of 

darker character than that which would have been 
presented by opposed armed parties or legions, gal- 
lantly maintaining battle on the yet uncovered space 
of gi-ound, while the universal flood was rising. 

2. Apathy toward the formidahle sivay of moral 
evils. — The friends of religion seem to have regarded 
those great maladies of the moral world, the delu- 
sions and abominations of paganism, with a sort of 
submissive awe, as if, almost, they had established a 
prescriptive right to the place they have held so long ; 
or as if they were part of an unchangeable, uncon- 
trollable, order of Nature, like the noxious climates 
of certain portions of the globe, and the liableness in 
others to the terrors of earthquake. 

3. Divine sovereignty falsely pleaded against obli- 
gation. — If that Being whose power is almighty has 
willed to peiTiiit on earth the protracted existence in 

12* 



138 poster's thoughts. 

opposition to him of this enormous evil, why are we 
called upon to vex and exhaust ourselves in a petty 
warfare against it 1 — why any more than to attempt 
the extinction of a volcano 1 If it were his will that 
it should be overthrown, we should soon, without 
having quitted our places and our quiet, in any offen- 
sive movement toward it, feel the earthquake of its 
mighty catastrophe ; and if such is not his will, then 
we should be plainly putting ourselves in the predic- 
ament of willing something which he does not will, 
and making exertions which must infallibly prove 
abortive. 

4. Indolence operating to repress sense of ohliga- 
tions. — Feelings of indolence, combined with ideas 
of the sovereignty of God, will form a state of mind 
prolific of such reflections as these : " Of what con- 
sequence can be the trivial efforts of such insignifi- 
cant creatures, as co-operating or not with the energy 
of an Almighty Power? What signify, in a great 
process of Nature, some few raindrops or dewdrops 
the more or the less ? What are we, to be talking, 
in strains of idle pomp, of converting the people of 
half a world 1 How reduced to contempt, how van- 
ishing from perception, will be the effects of all our 
petty toils, when mightier powers shall come into ac- 
tion ; as the footsteps of insects and birds are effaced 
and lost under the trample of elephants ! Were it 
not even temerity to affect to take the course where 
the chariot of Omnipotence is to drive ; as if we would 
intrude to share the achievements proper to a God, 
or fancy that something magnificent which he has to 
do, will not be done unless we are there ? 

5. Delay for more manifest tokens of duty. — If 
there be still some cautious Christians who are re- 
luctant to let it grow obsolete, we might ask them 
whether they have exactly figured in their minds in 
what manner the expected grand process is to begin, 
or what appearances they could accept as signs that 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 139 

the period is come when their efforts would not be 
like a vain attempt to constrain the fulfilment of a 
Divine purpose before its appointed time. Are there 
to be extraordinary meteors, significantly passing east- 
ward as they vanish ? Are they to hear that the tem- 
ples of Seeva are sunk suddenly in ruins at the stroke 
of thunder? Or, still more of prodigy, are all the 
chief statesmen, and mercantile men, and military 
men, especially concerned in the affairs of the East, 
to become with one accord inspired with a fervent 
zeal for the Christianizing of Asia, perhaps impelled 
literally to a spiritual crusade against Hindoo idola- 
try ? Why should they not accept as the required 
signs, the circumstances that have attended thus far 
this Christian enterprise in India ? 

6. Doctrine of decrees available to the liighest 
Christian zeal and activity. — As the principle of 
destruction is to be conveyed through the means of 
human agents, who so likely to be employed, they 
said, as we that are already on fire to destroy ] Be- 
yond all doubt, it is exactly here that we have our 
decreed and unalterable allotment. Exactly here it 
is, that our will and the Supreme Will coalesce to a 
purpose which defies all chance and all created power. 

7. Shrinking from the responsihility of the servants 
of God. — The great contest against evil, in all its 
modes of invasion of this world (but our reference 
is chiefly to those requiring men's resistance in the 
religious capacity), has been a seiTice assigned in 
every possible difference of circumstance and propor- 
tion ; and some men's shares have involved a violence 
of exertion, or a weight of suffering, which we look 
upon with wonder and almost with terror. We shud- 
der to think of mortals like ourselves having been 
brought into such fearful dilemmas between obedi- 
ence and guilt. We shrink from placing ourselves 
but in imagination under such tests of fidelity to God 
and a good cause. The painful sympathy with those 



140 Foster's thoughts. 

agents and sufferers terminates in self-congratulation, 
that their allotment of duty has not been ours. The 
tacit sentiment is, I am very glad I can be a good 
man on less severe conditions There is delu- 
sion, if we are permitted to escape from the habitual 
sense of being, in the character of the servants of 
God, placed under the duty and necessity of an in- 
tense moral warfare, against powers of evil as real 
and palpable as ever were encountered in the field 

of battle Duties to be performed at the cost of 

suffering oppressive and unmitigated toil, pain, want, 
reproach, loss of liberty and even of life itself, duties 
imposing such a trial of fidelity as confessors and 
martyrs have sustained. 

8. Inefficient conception of spij'itual relations. — One 
has fancied sometimes what might have been the ef- 
fect, in the selected instances, if the case had been 
that the Sovereign Creator had appointed but a few 
men, here and there one, to an immortal existence, 
or at least declared it only with respect to them. One 
can not help imagining them to feel, every hour, the 
impression of their sublime and awful predicament ! 
But why — why is it less felt a sublime and solemn, 
one, because the rest of our race are in it too % Does 
not each as a perfectly distinct o?2C, stand in the whole 
magnitude of the concern, and the resj^onsibility, and 
the danger, as absolutely if there were no other one % 
How is it less to him than if he thus stood alone ] 
Their losing the happy interest of etei-nity will not 
be, that he shall not have lost it for himself. If he 
shall have lost it, he will feel that they have not lost 
it for him. He should therefore now feel that upon 
him is concentrated, even individually upon him, the 

entire importance of this chief concern But 

what a depth of depravity that can thus receive and 
swallow up such masses of alarming truth and fact 
and then be as if all this were nothing ! How sad, 
that for men to be awfully wrong, and to be admon- 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 141 

ished, and to be aware that they are so, should leave 
them still at ease ! 

9. Strange ajjathy of the masses of manldnd to re- 
ligious truth. — Think of the movements of the heart, 
in the inhabitants of a great city, during a single day, 
— loving, desiring, hoping, hating, fearing, regretting! 
What an infinity of emotions! What a stupendous 
measure of active vitality ! Now consider — to these 
souls are presented among the other objects of inter- 
est, the things most important, desirable, and terrible 
in the universe ; these things are placed before them, 
and pressed on them, as evidently and as closely and 
palpably, as reason and revelation can. We know 
what should be the effect of these. We can think 
what it should be on any individual whom the eye 
hapj)ens to fix upon, known or a stranger. We can 
look on the passing train, or the collected crowd, and 
think what it should be on each, and all. What a 
measure therefore this would be of a good spirit in 
such an assemblage ! What is the effect on the far 
greater number] There are abundant indications 
to inform you what it is, or rather what it is not. 
And if the case be so, in an enlightened and Chiis- 
tian community, what is man ! a rational and immor- 
tal being, involved in a relation the most perfect, vital, 
and inseparable, with all that is most important ; the 
reality of that relation manifested to him, enforced, 
upon him ; and yet, he generally is as insensible to it 
almost as a statue of stone is to the objects surround- 
ing it ! But might not the compassion become 
mingled with indignation, when it should be observed 
how unlike an insensible figure he is toward other 
objects with which his relation is separable and tran- 
sient ? Nevertheless the great interest is still the 
same ; bears all the importance of eternity upon it ; 
remains as that sky above us, with its luminaries and 
its solemn and infinite depth, whether we look at it 
or not. 



142 poster's thoughts. 

10. Diversified appeals to religious emotion inef- 
fectual. — 1 fix an ardent gaze on Christianity, as- 
suredly the last best gift of Heaven to men; on Je- 
sus the agent and example of infinite love ; on time 
as it passes away ; on perfection as it shines beau- 
teous as heaven, and alas ! as remote ; on my own 
beloved soul which I have injui'ed, and on the un- 
happy multitude of souls around me ; and I ask my- 
self. Why do not my passions burn % Why does not 
zeal arise in mighty wrath, to dash my icy habits in 
pieces, to scourge me from indolence into fervid ex- 
ertion, and to trample all mean sentiments in the 
dust ? At intervals I feel devotion and benevolence 
and a surpassing ardor; but when they are turned 
toward substantial laborious operations, they fly and 
leave me spiritless amid the iron labor. 

11. Special privileges iviproved. — They should be 
regarded as cultivators regard the important weeks 
of the spring ; as mariners regard the blowing of fa- 
vorable winds ; as mej'chants seize a transient and 
valuable opportunity of gain ; as men, overlabored 
and almost overmatched in warfare, regard a strong 
reinforcement of fresh combatants. 

12. Temporary ebullition of benevolent feeling. — 
The course of feeling resembles a listless stream of 
water, which, after being dashed into commotion, by a 
massive substance flung into it, or by its precipitation 
at a rapid, relapses, in the progress of a few fathoms 
and a few moments, into its former sluggishness of 
current. 

13. Appeals to gratitude. — Consider! " Why am 
I not, at this hour, overwhelmed with distress, in- 
stead of these feelings of delight ? I deserve to be 
so, and many of my fellow-mortals are so, who prob- 
ably deserve it less. Is it not because God is ex- 
ceedingly good to me % To constitute this state 
which I am now enjoying, how many cares and gifts 
of that beneficent Father — how many collective rays 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 143 

of mercy from that open heaven ! And does my 
heart absorb all, and reflect nothing 1 All this that 
tells me of the Supreme Benefactor, does it really 
but make me, or prove me, an atheist ? In what 
manner — by what means — am I expecting ever to 
be reminded of God — ever to be drawn toward him, 
if his goodness has no such effect 1 If my heart has 
absolutely no will to send upward any of its gratify- 
ing emotions, as incense to him, what must be its 
condition ? Is not this a reflection calculated instant- 
ly to chill all this delight 1 If, in these pleasurable 
emotions, there is nothing of a nature that admits of 
being sent up in grateful devotion, what estimate 
should I form of my pleasure, my happiness 1 Con- 
tent ! delighted ! with a happiness which by its very 
nature estranges me from God !" 

14. Catholic charity evinced. — Then we shall never 
actually see a disposition to discountenance a design 
on account of its originating with an alien sect, rather 
than to favor it for its intrinsic excellence ; nor au 
eager insisting on points of precedence ; nor a sys- 
tematic practice of representing the operations of 
our own sect at their highest amount of ability and 
eff*ect, and those of another at their lowest; nor the 
studied silence of vexed jealousy, which is thinking 
all the while of what it can not endure to name \ nor 
that labored exaggeration of our magnitude and 
achievements, which most plainly tells ivhat that jeal- 
ousy is thinking of; nor that manner of hearing of 
marked and opportune advantages occurring to un- 
dertakings of another sect which betrays that a story 
of disasters would have been more welcome ; nor un- 
derhand contrivances for assuming the envied merit 
of something which another sect has accomplished 
and never boasted of. 

15. Peculiar faults of moderate men. — There is a 
class of good men naturally formed to be exceeding- 
ly sober, and cautious, and deliberate, and anxious 



144 poster's thoughts. 

for all It may be conceded to these worthy men, 

that the advocates of missions have not always avoid- 
ed extravagance. Especially when under the in- 
fluence of a large assembly, supposed to be animated, 
by interests which extend to the happiness of a world, 
they may have been excited to use a language which 
seemed to magnify these interests, and the projects 
in which they were embodied, at the expense of all 

other duties and concerns While, however, 

some concession is thus made to the cautious good 
men, who are more afraid of extravagance than of all 
other errors in designs for promoting religion, they 
must be told, that it would, have been an ill-fate for 
Christianity in the world, if Christians of their tem- 
perament could always have held the ascendency in 
projecting its operations. If they would for a moment 
put themselves, in imagination, in the case of being 
contemporary with Wicliff, or with Luther, and of 
being applied to by one of these daring spirits for ad- 
vice, we may ask what counsel they can suppose 
themselves to have given. They can not but be in- 
stantly conscious that, though they had been prot- 
estants at heart, their disposition would have been to 
array and magnify the objections and dangers ; to 
dwell in emphatic terms on the inveterate, all-com- 
prehensive, and resistless dominion of the papal 
church, established in every soul and body of the 
people ; on the vigilance and prompt malignity of the 
priests ; and on the insignificance, as to any probable 
effect, of an obscure individual's efforts against an 
immense and marvellously well-organized system of 

imposture and iniquity Ifin those instances such 

counsel had been acted upon as they would have 
given, that zeal which was kindling and destined to 
lay a great part of the mightier Babylon in ashes, 
would have smouldered and expired in a languid, 
listless hope, that the Almighty would sometime create 
such a juncture of circumstances as should admit an 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 145 

attempt at reformation without a culpable and use- 
less temerity It is the very contrary spirit to 

this of restrictive parsimonious calculation that has 
been the most signally honored ; inasmuch as some 
of the most effectual asd of the noblest services 
rendered to God in all time, have begun much more 
in the prompting of zeal to attempt something for 
him as it were at all hazards, than in rigorous esti- 
mates of the probable measure of effect. 

16. Vast residtsfrom apparently insignijicant cau- 
ses. — The diminutive grows to the large, sparks flame 
into conflagrations, fountains originate mighty streams, 
and most inconsiderable moral agents are made the 
incipients whence trains of agencies and effects, pro- 
ceeding on with continual accession, enlarge into ef- 
fects of immense mas^nitude Much of the actual 

condition of our part of the world consists of a num- 
ber of these grand results of enlarging trains of effects, 
progressive from the smallest beginnings, at various 
distances back in the past. 

17. Aggressive Christianity. — There was once an 
age, when it had been most unfortunate to be a bad 
man ; the good ones were so formidably active and 
courageous. There was a class of men whose pro- 
fession was martial benevolence. They lived but for 
the annihilation of wrongs ; to defend innocence ; to 
dwell in tempests, that goodness might dwell in peace ; 
to deliver the oppressed and captives, and to dash the 
tyrant down. Wo then to the castles of proud wick- 
edness, to magicians, robbers, giants, dragons ; for the 
wandering heroes vowed their destruction. This fa- 
mous age is gone ! But in every age it has been 
deemed honorable to wage war against the mischiev- 
ous things and mischievous beings that have infested 
the earth. " Gallant and heroic world !" we are in- 
clined to exclaim, while we contemplate the mighty 
resistance made to invading armies, elements, or 
plagues ; or the spirited persecution that has been 



146 Foster's thoughts. 

carried on against robbers, pirates, monsters, ser- 
pents, and wild beasts. Yes, tigers, wolves, hyenas, 
have been pursued to death. The avenging spirit has 
hunted the timid thief, and even condescended to crush 
each poor reptile that has been deemed offensive. But 
— " The world of fools !" we cry, while we consider 
that SIN, the hideous parent of all evils, and for ever 
multiplying her brood of monsters over the world, is 
quietly, or even comj)lacentlij, allowed here to inhabit 
and to ravage. Where are the heroes " who resist 
unto blood, striving against sin .?" Should we weep 
or laugh at the foolishness of mankind, childishly 
spending their indignation and force against petty 
evils, and maintaining a friendly peace with the fell 
and mighty principle of Destruction % It is just as 
if men of professed courage, employed to go and find 
and destroy a tiger or a crocodile that has spread 
alarm or havoc, on being asked at their return, " Have 
you done the deed?" should reply, "We have not, 
indeed, destroyed the tiger or crocodile, but yet we 
have acted heroically ; we have achieved something 
great : we have killed a wasp !" Or like men en- 
gaged to exterminate a den of murderers, who being 
asked at their return, " Have you accomplished the 
vengeance ?" should say, *' We have not destroyed 
any of the murderers ; we did not deem it worth 
while to attempt it : but ive have lamed oue of their 

dogs r 

18. Christian warfare. — All Christian exhortation. 
is in truth a summons to war. 

19. Self-devotion . — I hold myself a sacrifice, a vic- 
tim, consecrated and offered up on the great altar of 
the kingdom of Christ, as one of the human fruits of 
his kingdom, offered by him, the great High-Priest, 
to the God of all. 

20. Expressio7L in an evening ^:>ra7/6?r. — May we 
consider each night as the tomb of the departed day. 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 147 

and, seriously leaning over it, read the inscription 
written by conscience, of its character and exit. 

21. A life not devoted to God profitless. — Here am 
I with faculties and an infinite longing to be happy. 
Why am I not ? I have an oppressive sense of evil 
from which there is no escape. I have intense dis- 
satisfaction with myself and all things. Oh! it would 
not be so if I " dwelt in God and God in me." My 
life, my time, each year, spite of all I do and enjoy, 
seem a gloomy scene of emptiness and vanity. It 
would not be felt so if it were for God that I lived — 
if my affections, my activities, my years, my months, 
were devoted to hiTn. Without this, no year is good 
in its progress or its end. A high degree of this 
would have made our former years end nobly, would 
have made the last do so. 

22. The covetous man. — He refuses, perhaps ; or, 
much more probably, just saves the appearance and 
irksomeness of formally doing that, by contributing 
what is immeasurably below all fair proportion to his 
means ; what is in such disproportion to them, that 
a general standard taken from it would reduce the 
contributions of very many other persons to a frac- 
tion of the smallest denomination of our money, and 
would very shortly break up the mechanism of hu- 
man operation for prosecuting a generous design, 
throwing it directly on Providence and miracle. 

23. Uttemployed resources of the church. — With 
firebrands and torches put into their hands, can they 
be content to stand still and let them burn out, while 
the huge fabric inhabited by demon gods, and filled 
with pestilent abominations, spreads wide and towers 
aloft in pride and security before them 1 

24 . Denominational ajypellations shoidd he repressed^ 
to revealy in proportionably greater prominence^ the 
generic term Christian. — This can not be done while 
there is so little of the vital element of religion in the 
world ; because it is so shallow, these inconsiderable 



148 Foster's thoughts. 

points stand so prominent above the surface, and oc- 
casion obstruction and mischief; when the powerful 
spring-tide of piety and mind shall rise, these points 
will be swallowed up and disappear. 

25. The philoso'phy of pray c?-. — Certain fact, that 
whenever a man prays aright, he forgets the philoso- 
phy of it, and feels as if his supplications really would 
make a difference in the determination and conduct 
of the Deity. In this spirit are the prayers recorded 
in the Bible. 

26. Prayer to Heaven the greatest resource of earth. 
— If the people on the parched tracts along the Nile 
had a mighty engine for raising the water to irrigate, 
what would be thought of them for toiling with little 
earthen vessels, from which the element would al- 
most evaporate while they were carrying it 1 Now 
look at our means for good. There is one pre-emi- 
nent ; just that one that lies nearly unemployed! 
One image of this sort suggests another. The poor, 
superstitious multitudes of India believe that their 
adored river comes from heaven, and they are con- 
sistent. They pant to go to it ; they have recourse 
to it with eager devotion ; they purify their vessels 
with it, and themselves ; they consider it a precious 
element in their food ; they are happy to be carried 
to its banks when dying. Now we know that our 
grand resource of prayer is a* blessed privilege grant- 
ed from Heaven, of a peculiarly heavenly quality : 
where is our consistency, if we are indifferent and 
sparing in the use of it 1 

27. Christian vigilance. — It suggests the idea of a 
place where a man can hardly go to sleep, lest the 
plunderer or assassin be watching, or hovering near 
unseen ; or of a place where the people can walk out 
no whither, without suspicion of some lurking dan- 
ger or enemy not far off; and are to be constantly 
looking vigilantly and fearfully round ; a j^lace where 
they can not ascend an eminence, nor wander through 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 149 

a sequestered valley, nor entei' a blooming grove, nor 
even a garden of flowers, without having the image 
of the serpent, the wild beast, or a more deadly mis- 
chief in human shape, as vividly present to the imagi- 
nation as the visible enemy is to the eye. 

28. Avoidance of temptation. — Be careful that when 
unquestionable duty leads into the way of temptation, 
we stay not longer near the temptation than we are 
honestly about the duty. Beware of the kind of com- 
panionship that directly leads into temptation. But 
let no man be beguiled to think he is safe against 
temptation at the times when his only companion is 
himself. The whole tempting world may then come 
to him through the medium of the imagination. The 
great deep of his own evil heart may then be broken 
up. In this solitude may come that tempter that 
came to our Lord in the desert. 

29. Triuvi'ph of mecliness. — Confront improper 
conduct, not by retaliation, but example. 

30. Incipient temptation. — It is in fatal connexion 
with the next ensuing, and yet conceals what is be- 
hind. Since temptation is sure to be early with its 
beginnings, so too should watching and praying ; ear- 
ly in life ; early in the day ; early in every underta- 
king ! What haste the man must make, that will be 
beforehand with temptation ! 

31. Christian heroism. — This soul either shall gov- 
ern this body, or shall quit it. 

32. Conflicts of wisdom and virtue. — One has some- 
times continued in a foolish company, for the sake 
of maintaining a virtuous hostility in favor of wisdom ; 
as the Jordan is sai(f to force a current quite through 
the Dead sea. 

33. Conscience. — There is not on earth a more ca- 
pricious, accommodating, or abused thing, than con- 
science. It would be very possible to exhibit a cu- 
rious classification of consciences in genera and spe- 
cies. What copious matter for speculation among 

13* 



150 Foster's thoughts. 

the varieties of — lawyer's conscience — cleric con- 
science — lay conscience — lord's conscience — peas- 
ant's conscience — hermit's conscience — tradesman's 
conscience — philosopher's conscience — Christian's 
conscience — conscience of reason — conscience of 
faith — healthy man's conscience — sick man's con- 
science — ingenious conscience — simple conscience, 
&c., &c., &c., &c. 

34. Watch and jjray. — Watching without prayer 
were but an impious homage to ourselves. Prayer 
without watching were but an impious and also ab- 
surd homage to God. 

35. Ilule of faith. — A belief that in all things and 
at all events God is to be obeyed ; that there is the 
essential distinction of holiness and sin in all conduct, 
both within the mind and in external action, and 
that sin is absolutely a dreadful evil ; that tliat must 
not be done which must be repented of; that the fu- 
ture should predominate over the present. 

36. Influences unfriendly to piety. — In addition to 
the grand fact of the depravity of the human heart, 
there are so many causes operating injuriously through 
the week on the characters of those who form a con- 
gregation, that a thoughtful man often feels a melan- 
choly emotion amid his religious addresses, from the 
reflection that he is making a feeble effort against a 
powerful evil, a single effort against a combination of 
evils, a temporary and transient effort against evils 
of continual operation, and a purely intellectual ef- 
fort against evils, many of which act on the senses. 
.... The sight of so many bad examples, the com- 
munications of so many injurious acquaintances, and 
hearing and talking of what would be, if written, so 
many volumes of vanity and nonsense, the predomi- 
nance of fashionable dissipation in one class, and of 
vulgarity in another. 

37. Religion submerged in the ivorld. — I still less 
and less like the wealthy part of your circle (H.'s). 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 151 

Tt appears to me that the main body of principle is 
merged. As to religion, sir, they- are in a religious 
diving-bell ; religion is not circumambient, but a little 
is conveyed down into the worldly depth, where they 
breathe by a sort of artificial inlet — a tube. 

38. Isolated virtues repressed hy uncongenial asso- 
ciations. — Each good motive must, to be of any essen- 
tial value, be part of a whole general system of such 
motives. There must be a vital circulation of the 
holy principles through the whole soul. The single 
part can not by itself have pulsation, and warmth, and 
life. The one actuating principle will be surrounded 
by a multitude of others ; and if it be a holy one, and 
they are hostile, it will soon be overwhelmed by them 
and perish. 

39. Reputation for virtue necessary to confidence. — 
But no public man can have such a reputation with- 
out having substantially such a character. And by 
a law, as deep in human nature as any of its princi- 
ples of distinction between good and evil, it is im- 
possible to give respect or confidence to a man who 
habitually disregards some of the primary ordinances 
of morality. . . . No man, even of the highest talents, 
can ever acquire, or at least retain, much influence 
on the public mind in the character of remonstrant 
and reformer, without the reality, or at any rate the 
invulnerable reputation, of virtue, in the comprehen- 
sive sense of the word, as comprising every kind of 
morality prescribed by the highest moral code ac- 
knowledged in a Christian nation. 

40. Efficacy of religious habits.— ^He will trace all 
the progress of this his better life, with grateful ac- 
knowledgment to the sacred power which has ad- 
vanced him to a decisiveness of religious habit that 
seems to stamp eternity on his character. In the 
greater majority of things, habit is a greater plague 
than ever afflicted Egypt; in religious character, it is 
a grand felicity. The devout man exults in the in- 



152 poster's thoughts. 

dications of Ins being fixed and irretrievable. He 
feels this confirmed habit as the grasp of the hand of 
God, which will never let him go. From this ad- 
vanced state he looks with firmness and joy on futu- 
rity, and says, *' I carry the eternal mark upon me 
that I belong to God ; I am free of the universe ; and 
I am ready to go to any world to which he shall 
please to transmit me, certain that everywhere, in 
height or depth, he will acknowledge me for ever." 

41. Attractiveness of simple and unaffected piety. — 
It would be unjust not to observe that some Chris- 
tians, of a subordinate intellectual order, are distin- 
guished by such an unassuming simplicity, by so 
much refinement of conscience, and by a piety so 
fervent and even exalted, that it vi^ould imply a very 
perverted state of mind in a cultivated man, if these 
examples did not operate, notwithstanding the con- 
fined scope of their ideas, to attract him toward the 
faith which renders them so happy and excellent, ra- 
ther than to repel him from it. 

42. Slow progress in piety. — How strange and mor- 
tifying that progress in personal religion is so diflS- 
cult ! that it should not be the natural, earnest, and 
even impetuous tendency of an immortal spirit, sum- 
moned to the prosecution of immortal interests ! 

43. The Savior, though unseen, loved. — Think of 
all the affection of human hearts that has been given 
to the Savior of the world, since he withdrew his vis- 
ible presence from it ! He has appeared to no eye 
of man since the apostles ; but millions have loved 
him with a fervency which nothing could extinguish, 
in life or death. Think of the great " army" of those 
who have suffered death for this love, and have cher- 
ished it in death ! A mightier number still would 
have died for it, and with it, if summoned to do so. 
Think of all those who, in the excitement and inspi- 
ration of this love, have indefatigably labored to pro- 
mote the glory of its great object ! — and the innumer- 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 153 

able multitude of those who, though less prominently 
distinguished, have felt this sacred sentiment living 
in the soul, as the principle of its best life, and the 
source of all its immortal hopes ! This is a splendid 
fact in the history of our race, a glorious exception 
to the vast and fatal expenditure of human affection 
on unworthy and merely visible things. So grand a 
tribute of the soul has been redeemed to be given to 
the Redeemer, though an object unseen ! . . . . Our 
conceptions are not reduced and confined down to a 
precise image of human personality — a particular, in- 
dividual, graphical form, which would be always pres- 
ent to the mind's eye, in every meditation on the ex- 
alted Redeemer Thus we can with somewhat 

the more facility give our thoughts an unlimited en- 
largement in contemplating his sublime character 
and nature. Thus also we are left at greater freedom 
in the effort to form some grand though glimmering 
idea of him as possessing a glorious body, assumed 
after his victory over death. Our freedom of thought 
is the more entire for arraying the exalted Mediator 
in every glory which speculation, imagination, devo- 
tion, can combine, to shadow forth the magnificence 

of such an adored object The manner in which 

he appears in the visions of Daniel ; the transfigura- 
tion ; in his manifestation to Paul ; and the transcen- 
dent images in the visions of John — in endeavoring 
to form a sublime conception of him, can add, and 
accumulate upon the idea, all the glory that has arisen 
to him from the progress of his cause in the world 
ever since. So many mighty interpositions ; con- 
quests gained; strongholds of darkness demolished; 
such a multitude of sinful immortal spirits redeemed 
— devoted to him on earth, and now triumphing with 
him in heaven : all this is become an added radiance 
around the idea of him ! 

44. Desire of association. — A reflection that never 
occurs without the bitterest pain : one longs for affec- 



154 Foster's thoughts. 

tion, for an object to love devotedly, for an interest- 
ing friend to associate and commune w^ith ; meanwhile 
THE Deity offers his friendship and communion, and 
is refused, or forgotten ! ! There are, too, the sages 
of all ages — there is Moses, Daniel, Elijah ; and you 
complain of want of society ! ! ! 

45. God dwells in his 2')€ople. — God has an all-per- 
vading power ; can interpose, as it were, his very es- 
sence through the being of his creatures ; can cause 
himself to be apprehended and felt as absolutely in 
the soul — such an intercommunion as is, by the na- 
ture of things, impossible between created beings. 
And thus the interior, central loneliness, the solitude 
of the soul, is banished by a perfectly intimate pres- 
ence, which imparts the most affecting sense of soci- 
ety — a society, a communion, which imparts life and 
joy, and may continue in perpetuity. To men com- 
pletely immersed in the world, this might appear a 
very abstracted and enthusiastic notion of felicity; 
but to those who have, in any measure, attained it, 
the idea of its loss would give the most emphatic 
sense of the expression, — " Without God in the 
world !" 

46. The rewards of iiiety 2^rogressively developed. 
— Any train of serious thoughts and exercises in the 
mind, having a reference to practical good, and be- 
ginning on one suggestion, one conviction, but at last 
attaining the ultimate effect or result ; .... a course 
of inquiry concerning any important truth ; the begin- 
ning is ignorance, doubt, anxiety, dread of the labor, 
misty and dubious twilight, and daybreak ; but the 

end, knowledge, certainty, satisfaction, &c. ; 

any practical undertaking for social good, as the 

present one ; Christian profession ; examples 

of the contrary are justly accounted among the most 
melancholy sights on earth ; . . . . life itself: in the 
beginning are the charms of infancy ; but the end 
may be far better ; as in the case of a withered, ti-em- 



DUTIES OF CHRISTIANITY. 155 

bling, sinking old man, whose soul is ripe for eter- 
nity ; and it should be so, and must be so, or life is 
an awful calamity ! . . . . The fruit is better than the 
blossom, the reaping is better than the sowing, the 
enjoyment better than the reaping; the second stage 
of a journey to the happy home is better than the 
first ; the home itself than all ; the victory is better 
than the march and the battle ; the reward is better 
than the course of service ; the ending in the highest 
improvement of means is better than being put at 
first in possession of them. 



156 Foster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER VIL 

OF MAN THE FORMATION OF CHARACTER ITS SOUR- 
CES AND DIVERSITIES POPULAR IGNORANCE, AND 

THE DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE. 

1. On the greatness of man. — Mankind viewed 
collectively, as an assemblage of beings, presents to 
contemplation an object of astonishing magnitude. It 
has spread over this wide world to essay its powers 
against every obstacle, and every element; and to 
plant in every region its virtues and its vices. As 
we pass along the plains, we perceive them marked 
by the labors, the paths, or the habitations of man. 
Proceeding forward across rivers, or through woods, 
or over mountains, we still find man in possession on 
the other side. Each valley that opens, and each hill 
that rises before us, presents a repetition of human 
abodes, contrivances, and appropriations ; for each 
house, and garden, and field (in some places almost 
each tree), reminds us that there is a person some- 
where who is proud to think and say, " This is mine." 

All the beautiful and rugged varieties of earth, from 
the regions of snow to those of burning sand, have 
been pervaded by man. If we sail to countries be- 
yond the seas, we find him still, though he may dis- 
claim our language, our manners, and our color. 
And if we discover lands where he is not, we pres- 
ently quit them, as if the Creator too were a stranger 
there. Here and there indeed a desert retreat is in- 
habited by an ascetic, whom the solemnity of solitude 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 157 

has drawn thither; or by a felon, whom guilt has 
driven thither. 

While he extends himself thus over the world, be- 
hold this collective grandeur. It appears prominent 
in great cities built by his own hands ; it is seen in 
structures that look like temples erected to time, 
which promise by their strength to await the latest 
years of his continuance with men ; and seem to plead 
by their magnificence against the decree which dooms 
them to perish when he shall abandon them ; it is 
seen in wide empires, and in armies, which may be 
called the talons of imperial power — to give security 
to happiness where that power is just, but for cruel 
ravage where it is tyrannical ; it is displayed in fleets ; 
in engines which operate as if informed with a por- 
tion of the actuating«power of his own mind ; in the 
various productions of beauty ; the discoveries of 
science ; in subjected elements, and a cultivated globe. 
The sentiment with which we contemplate this scene 
is greatly augmented when imagination bears her 
flaming torch into the enormous shade which over- 
spreads the past, and passes over the whole succes- 
sion of human existence, with all its attendant prod- 
igies. When we have made the addition for futurity, 
of supposing the human race extensively enlightened, 
apprized of their dignity and power, and combined 
in a far stricter union, till the vast ocean of mind pre- 
vail over all its accustomed boundaries, and sweep 
away many of the evils which oppress the world — 
we may pause awhile and indulge our amazement. 
Such an aggregate view of the multitude, achieve- 
ments, and powers of man, is grand. It has the air 
of a general and endless triumph. 

2. Great men. — A character stands before us of 
colossal stature, who presents the lineaments and the 
powers of man in magnitude — a magnitude which 
conceals a numerous crowd of mankind undistinguish- 
ed behind him. His aspect declares that he knows 
14 



158 poster's thoughts. 

he belongs to himself, and that he possesses himself; 
while the rest seem only to belong as appendages to 
the situation. He brings from the Creator a com- 
mission far more ample than those of other men ; and 
instead of having to learn with tedious application, 
the nature and circumstances of the world to which 
he is sent, it apj)ears as if he had been taught them 
all before he came. Guided by intuitive principles 
and rule, he enters on the stage of action with the 
intelligent confidence of one who has accomplished 
himself by frequenting it long. And whatever still 
undiscovered means and materials are requisite to his 
achievements, some kind of internal revelation informs 
him where they are, though latent in earth, water, 
air, or fire ; and empowers him quickly to detect them 
and draw them thence. We observe that for many 
things he has regards and names different from the 
common ; for some objects generally esteemed great, 
excite no emotion in him, or none but contempt. He 
calls suffering, discipline ; sacrifices, emolument; and 
what are usually deemed insuperable obstacles, he 
names impediments, .and casts them out of the way, 
or vaults over them. His mind seems a focus which 
concentrates into one ardent beam the lanor-uid lio;-hts 
and fires of ten thousand surrounding minds. It 
might be expected that a few such extraordinary 
specimens of human hature, scattered here and there, 
would have a wonderful influence on the rest of men. 
One might expect to see a most fervid emulation 
kindled wide, indolence and folly discarded, and trifles 
falling to the ground from all hands. It should seem 
natural to make the reflection, " Either these are 
morethanmen, or we are less." .... Asublime image 
of perfection is constantly before them at a distance, 
though a gloomy cloud may sometimes interpose, to 
obscure or for a moment hide it. They are like 
night-adventurers, who, having caught a view of a 
noble mansion of a difficult eminence, resolve to reach 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 159 

it, while, together with the path that conducts thither, 
it is alternately revealed by flashes of lightning, and 
shrouded by the returning darkness. They are 
grieved almost to madness when they feel their spirits 
failing in a trial, or find their powers retreating from 
some noble but arduous attempt. Grand objects in 
the natural world affect them powerfully, and their 
images are adopted as a kind of scenery for the in- 
terior apartment of the mind, to assist it to form great 
thoughts. But the int^erest they feel in greatness 
when it shines in their brother man, is of force to fire 
their utmost enthusiasm, at the view of exalted hero- 
ism, displayed in enterprise, in suffering, or even in 
retirement, and to melt them into tears at the recital 
of an act of godlike generosity. For a while they 
almost lament that they could not be there, and them- 
selves the actors, though ages have passed since. In 
the reveries into which they sometimes wander, they 
are apt to personate some exalted character in some 
interesting situation ; or more frequently to fancy 
themselves such characters, and create situations of 
their own ; and when they return from visionary 
rovings, to the serious ground of reason, regretting 
the inertion of the past, they solemnly resolve the 
most strenuous exertions to surpass, beyond measure, 
all around them, and their present selves. 

3. Indifference of the masses to the distinctions of 
genius. — Is it true that the human nature was cast 
to carry forward the great series of existence, from 
the inferior to the higher ranks of being, by a grada- 
tion which such parts were necessary to complete? 
or is it a solemn decree of fate that the aggregate 
amount of human dignity must not exceed a certain 
measure, and therefore the splendid intellectual pos- 
sessions of individuals are of the nature of conquests, 
made at the expense of part of their brethren, who 
must be degraded, to counterbalance these glories % 
As to the very numerous class who hold the degree 



160 Foster's thoughts. 

of mediocrity, tell them of a man who has performed 
a noble act of justice or benevolence in spite of the 
most powerful temjitations to the contrary; tell them 
of another who has suffered tortures and death for 
virtue's sake — and suffered them without a groan ; 
describe to them heroes who have possessed their 
souls unappalled when environed by dangers, and 
horrors, and death, and fire ; or talk to them of a sub- 
lime genius, that transcending Milton's powerful 
agents, who constructed a road from the infernal king- 
dom to this unfortunate world, has carried a path from 
this world among the stars, and generally the emotion 
kindled would be so languid, that the smallest trifle 
will extinguish it, and turn attention another way. 
They are content to acknowledge that such charac- 
ters are much superior to them, just as they would 
acknowledo-e that a tree is taller, and then think no 
more about them. They resemble some lazy and 
incurious peasants inhabiting the neighborhood of a 
high mountain, from the top of which they have heard 
that vast plains, and cities, and. ocean, can be seen, 
but never thought it worth the labor to ascend for 
such a view. 

4. The 7nyriad influences comhining to form char- 
acter. — Through this lengthened, and, if the number 
could be told, stupendous multiplicity of things, you 
have advanced, while all their heterogeneous myriads 
have darted influences upon you, each one of them 
having some definable tendency. A traveller round 
the globe would not meet a greater variety of sea- 
sons, prospects, and winds, than you might have re- 
corded of the circumstances affecting the progress 
of your character, in your moral journey. You 
could not wish to have drawn to yourself the agency 
of a vaster diversity of causes ; you could not wish, 
on the supposition that you had gained advantage from 
all these, to wear the spoils of a greater number of 
regions. The formation of the character from so 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 161 

many materials reminds one of that mighty appro- 
priating attraction, which, on the hypothesis that the 
resurrection should reassemble the same particles 
which composed the body before, must draw them 
from dust, and trees, and animals, from ocean, and 
winds. 

5. Comparatively trifling incidents of early life de 
rive vast importance from prospective hearing upon 
character and destiny. — The first rude settlement of 
Romulus would have been an insignificant circum- 
stance, and might justly have sunk into oblivion, if 
Rome had not at length commanded the world. The 
little rill, near the source of one of the great Ameri- 
can rivers, is an interesting object to the traveller, 
who is apprized, as he steps across it, or walks a few 
miles along its bank, that this is the stream which 
runs so far, and which gradually swells into so im- 
mense a flood. So, while I anticipate the endless 
progress of life, and wonder through what unknown 
scenes it is to take its course, its past years lose that 
character of vanity which would seem to belong to 
a train of fleeting perishing moments, and I see them 
assuming the dignity of a commencing eternity. 

6. Unsuspected importance of early life. — When 
we go back to it in thought, and endeavor to recal 
the interests which animate it, they will not come. 
We are like a man returning, after the absence of 
many years, to visit the embowered cottage where 
he passed the morning of his life, and finding only a 
relic of its ruins. 

But many of the propensities which still continue, 
probably originated then : and our not being able to 
explore them up to those remote sources renders a 
complete investigation of our moral and intellectual 
characters for ever impossible. How little, in those 
years, we are aware, when we met with the inci- 
dent, or heard the conversation, or saw the spectacle 
or felt the emotion, which were the first causes of 
14* 



162 poster's thoughts. 

some of the chief permanent tendencies of future life, 
how much and how vainly we might, long afterward, 
wish to ascertain the origin of those tendencies. 

7. Education of life. — We may regard our past 
life as a continued though iiTegular course of educa- 
tion ; and the discipline has consisted of instruction, 
companionship, reading, and the diversified influences 

of the world I am highly pleased to feel that I 

am acquiring something of that military discipline of 
thought and action, which I suppose will be indispen- 
sable through the whole of life. 

8. Elements of character traced to their sources 
along the retrospect of life. — I yet can not but per- 
ceive that the immediate causes of the greater por- 
tion of the prominent actual character of human be- 
ings are to be found in those moral elements through 
which they pass. And if one might be pardoned for 
putting in words, so fanciful an idea as that of its being 
possible for a man to live back again to his infancy, 
through all the scenes of his life, and to give back 
from his mind and character, at each time and cir- 
cumstance, as he repassed it, exactly that which he 
took from it when he v^as there before, it would be 
most curious to see the fragments and exuvice of the 
moral man lying here and there along the retrograde 
path, and to find what he w^as in the beginning of this 
train of modifications and acquisitions. 

9. Absorbing power of a man of genius. — His mind 
seems a focus which concentrates into one ardent 
beam the languid lights and fires often thousand sur- 
rounding minds. 

10. States of mind and progress of character are the 
life, and not a series of facts and dates. — It is often 
by a detail of this subordinate economy of life, that 
the works of fiction, the narratives of age, the jour- 
nals of travellers, and even grave biographical ac- 
counts, are made so unreasonably long. As well 
might a chronicle of the coats that a man has wora, 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 163 

with the color and date of each, be called his life, for 
any important uses of relating its history. As well 
might a man of whom I inquire the dimensions, the 
internal divisions, and the us^, of some remarkable 
building, begin to tell me how much wood was em- 
ployed in the scaffolding, where the mortar was pre- 
pared, or how often it rained while the work was 
proceeding. 

11. The iminortality of character. — We must be 
prepared to surrender to the inevitable approaches 
of mortality, and the more earnestly aspire to be 
ready to surrender the whole of what can die. How 
striking to realize the idea, that at a time, at the ut- 
most comparatively not distant, this entire material 
frame, with all that in it is now in order and in dis- 
order, will be under ground and dissolving into dust ! 
I often image to myself the fact, as it will one day 
be, when, at the same time, all above ground will 
continue to be as we see it now, and are sharers of 
its life and activity — a profusion of blooming youth, 
amusement, business, infinitely various interests and 
pursuits, and (as now) little thought of death. So 
far the anticipated, inevitable, and prodigious change, 
can not but have a dreary aspect. But there is the 
never-dying principle^ the spiritual agent, the real and 
imperishable being; that will be set free, and rise in 
sublime independence of dust, and all that can be 
turned to dust : let us take care of that, or rather com- 
mit it to God to be taken care of, and then never mind 
the insignificant loss which we are doomed to incur, 
of a piece of organized clay. 

12. Want of self-confidence an element of weakness 
of character. — Let them be brought into the necessi- 
ty of adopting actual measures in an untried proceed- 
ing, where, unassisted by any previous example or 
practice, they are reduced to depend on the resources 
of pure judgment alone, and you will see, in many 
cases, this confidence of opinion vanish away. The 



164 Foster's thoughts. 

mind seems all at once placed in a misty vacuity, 
where it reaches round on all sides, but can find noth- 
ing to take hold of. Or if not lost in vacuity, it is 
overwhelmed by confusion ; and feels as if its facul- 
ties w'ere annihilated as soon as it begins to think 
of schemes and calculations among the possibilities, 
chances, and hazards, which overspread a wide, un- 
trodden field ; and this conscious imbecility becomes 
severe distress, when it is believed that consequences, 
of serious or unknown good or evil, are depending 
on the decisions which are to be formed amid so 
much uncertainty. The thought painfully recurs at 
each step and turn — " I may be right, but it is more 
probable I am wrong." 

13. Ohstinacy of character not decision. — It may 
produce that false and contemptible kind of decision 
which we term ohstinacy ; a stubbornness of temper, 
which can assign no reasons but mere will, for a con- 
stancy which acts in the nature of dead weight ra- 
ther than of strength ; resembling less the reaction 
of a powerful spring, than the gravitation of a big 
stone. 

14. Energy and force of character augmented by 
vigorous physical constitution. — It would be for physi- 
ologists to explain, if it were explicable, the manner 
in which corjDoreal organization aflfects the mind ; I 
only assume it as a fact that there is in the material 
construction of some persons, much more than of 
others, some quality which augments, if it does not 
create, both the stability of their resolution and the 
energy of their active tendencies. There is some- 
thing that, like the ligatures which one class of the 
Olympic combatants bound on their hands and wrists, 
braces round, if I may so describe it, and compresses 
the powers of the mind, giving them a steady, forci- 
ble spring and reaction, which they would presently 
lose if they could be transferred into a constitution 
of soft, yielding, treacherous debility. The action 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 165 

of Strong character seems to demand somethino- firm 
in its corporeal basis, as massive engines require, for 
their weight and for their working, to be fixed on a 
solid foundation. 

15. A strenuous will an element of decided charac- 
ter. — Another essential principle of the character is, 
a total incapability of surrendering to indifference or 
delay the serious determinations of the mind. A 
strenuous will must accompany the conclusions of 
thought, and constantly incite the utmost efforts for 
their practical accomplishment. The intellect must 
be invested, if I may so describe it, with a glowing 
atmosphere of passion, under the influence of which 
the cold dictates of reason take fire, and spring into 
active powers. 

16. Religious faith the highest element of moral 
courage. — The last decisive energy of a rational cour- 
age, which confides in the Supreme Power, is very 
subhme. It makes a man, who intrej^idly dares ev- 
erything that can oppose or attack him within the 
whole sphere of mortality ; who would retain his pur- 
pose unshaken amid the ruins of the world ; who will 
still press toward his object while death is impending 
over him. It was in the true elevation of this char- 
acter that Luther, when cited to appear at the diet 
of Worms, under a very questionable assurance of 
safety from high authority, said to his friends, who 
conjured him not to go, and justly brought the ex- 
ample of John Huss, who, in a similar situation, and 
with the same pledge of protection, had notwithstand- 
ing been burnt alive, " I am called in the name of 
God to go, and I would go, though I were certain to 
meet as many devils in Worms as there are tiles on 
the houses !" — A reader of the Bible will not forget 
Daniel, braving in calm devotion the decree which 
virtually consigned him to the den of hons ; or Sha- 
drach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, saying to the tyrant, 



166 Foster's thoughts. 

" We are not careful to answer thee in this matter," 
when the furnace was in sight. 

17. I knoiv no mortification so severe as that which 
accompanies the evinced inefficacy, in one's own con- 
duct, of a virtuous conviction so decisive that it can 
receive no additional cogency from the resources of 
either the judgment or the heart. 

18. Query : ivJiether the generality of minds, the 
common order, could he cultivated into accuracy and 
discrimination of general thought ? — No ; they might 
be made accurate in a particular department, depend- 
ing on facts — accurate mechanics, tradesmen, gram- 
marians, &c. ; but not as thinkers on the wide gen- 
eral field of truth and sentiment. " This is very un- 
fortunate." — "No, madam, all is appointed by the 
Deity ; and if more geniuses had been needful, they 
would have been forthcoming." 

19. Commonplace character. — As to the crowd of 
those who are faithfully stamped, like bank-notes, 
with the same marks, with the difference only of be- 
ing worth more guineas or fewer, they are mere par- 
ticles of a class, mere pieces and bits of the great 
vulgar or the small ; they need not write their history, 
it may be found in the newspaper chronicle, or the 
gossip's or the sexton's narrative. 

20. Those averse to inquiry. — They resemble some 
lazy and incurious peasants inhabiting the neighbor- 
hood of a high mountain, from the top of which they 
have heard that vast plains, and cities, and ocean, can 
be seen, but never thought it worth the labor to as- 
cend .for such a view. 

21. Aversion to refection. — Is it not too evident, 
that people's attention and thought mainly go out- 
ward '1 insomuch that retiring inward would be like 
retreating into a narrow, dark, desolate, comfortless 
apartment of a house, or into a prison or a cavern. 
But there can be no effective self-examination with- 
out a resolute and often-repeated effort to retire in- 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 167 

ward, and stay a while, and pointedly inspect what is 
there. You can imagine that often a man has been 
frightened out of his soul to take refuge in the ap- 
parently better quality of his conduct. Any impulse 
the examiner feels to do so, should warn him to stay 
a while longer there — in the inteiior. It is especially 
there that the great substance lies of what is wrong, 
or right, as toward God. 

22. Inattention to the complex action and diversi- 
fied experience of the mind. — Men carry their minds 
as they carry their watches, content to be ignorant 
of the mechanism of their movements, and satisfied 
with attending to the little exterior circle of things, 
to which the passions, like indexes, are pointing. 

23. Learned in all science and history hut that of 
oneself — He may have lived almost an age, and trav- 
ersed a continent, minutely examining its curiosities, 
and interpreting the half-obliterated characters on its 
monuments, unconscious the while of a process op- 
erating on his own mind, to impress or to erase char- 
acteristics of much more importance to him than all 
the figured brass or marble that Europe contains. 
After having explored many a cavern, or dark, ruin- 
ous avenue, he may have left undetected a darker 
recess in liis character. He may have conversed with 
many people, in different languages, on numberless 
subjects ; but, having neglected those conversations 
with himself by which his whole moral being should 
have been kept continually disclosed to his view, he 
is better qualified perhaps to describe the intrigues 
of a foreign court, or the progress of a foreign trade ; 
to represent the manners of the Italians or the Turks ; 
to narrate the proceedings of the Jesuits, or the ad- 
ventures of the gipsies ; than to write the history of 
his own mind. 

24. Waste of thoughts. — The sun may waste an 
immense proportion of his beams — the clouds of iheir 
showers — but these can be spared ; there is an infi- 



168 Foster's thoughts. 

nite opulence still, for all the indispensable purposes 
of nature. It is not so with our thinking faculty. 
The most saving use of our thinking power will but 
imperfectly suffice for the knowledge, sound judg- 
ment, and wisdom, which are so very necessary for 
us. It is wretched, then, that this precious thing, the 
activity of our thinking spirit, should run to utter 
waste. It is as if the fine element, gas, by means of 
which your city is now lighted, should be suffered to 
expire into the air without being kindled into light. 
.... As when, in some regions, a swarm of locusts 
fills the air, so as to exclude the sun, at once inter- 
cepting the light of heaven, and devouring what it 
should shine on. Thus by ill-regulated thought we 
are defrauded of what is the supreme value of thought. 
We amuse ourselves with the flying chaff", careless of 

the precious grain What will ten thousand of 

these trifling, volatile thoughts come to, for explain- 
ing any subject, disentangling any perplexity, recti- 
fying any false notion, enforcing any argument, main- 
taining any truth 1 It is in vain that the man glances 
in recollection and research through all the idle crowd 
of his ideas, for anything to avail him. It were like 
' bringing straws, and leaves, and feathers, to meet an 
account where silver and gold are required. . . . Of- 
ten, on looking back on a day or a week, we can 
mark out large portions in which life was of no use 
-—in other words, was nothing worth — because the 
mind did nothing, and gained nothing ; notwithstand- 
ing that the while the pulsation of the blood and all 
the vital functions of the animal life went on ; not- 
withstanding that the dial noted the rapid hours, the 
sun rose and set, the grand volume of truth was ex- 
panded before us, and the great operations of nature 
held their uncontrollable course It was impos- 
sible not to regret that the power most made for ac- 
tion and advance, the power apparently adapted to 
run a race with any orb in the sky, should be so im- 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 169 

mensely left behind. And it was difficult to avoid 
the folly of wishing that the soul, too, were under 
some grand law of necessitated exertion and inevi- 
table improvement, 

I remember when once, many years ago, musing 
in reflective indolence, observing the vigorous vege- 
tation of some shrubs and plants in spring, I wished 
that the powers of the mind too could not help growing 
in the same spontaneous manner. But this vain wish 
instantly gave place to the recollected sober convic- 
tion, that there is a simple and practicable process 
which would as certainly be followed by the high im- 
provements of reason, as the vegetable luxury follows 
the genial warmth and showers of spring. If all our 
wishes for important acquirements had become ef- 
forts, my friend ! if all those spaces of time, that have 
been left free from the claims of other employment, 
had been spent in such a determined exercise of our 
faculties, as we recollect to have sustained at a few 
particular seasons, how much more correct, acute, 
ample, and rich, they would at this time have been ! 

2b. Mortfying revieio of the progress of character. 
— Many years are now gone since the conduct and 
the responsibility of my own education devolved en- 
tirely on myself. It is not necessary to review these 
years in order to estimate the manner in which this 
momentous charge has been executed. The present 
state of my mind and character supplies a mortify- 
ing excess of proof, that the interesting work has 
been conducted ill. 

2^. Observation available to the formation of 
character. — A great defect in the intellectual econo- 
my of my life ; I have made many observations on 
men and things, but have let these observations re- 
main in insulated bits, and have seldom referred them 
to any general principles of truth, or of the philoso- 
phy of the human mind. Such observations have a 
particular use when applied to circumstances, but 
15 



170 Foster's thoughts. 

not the general use of perfecting system, or illustra- 
ting tlieoiy. Qy. Has this defect been owing to 
indolence or incapacity 1 

27 . Amplitude and symmetri/ of cJiaracter.—Qican- 
tity of existence may perhaps be a proper phrase for 
that, the less or more of which causes the less or 
more of our interest in the individuals around us. 
The person who gives us most the idea of ample be- 
ing, interests us the most. Something certainly de- 
pends on the Tiiod'ification of this being, and some- 
thing on its comprising eacli of the parts requisite to 
completeness ; but still perhaps the most depends on 
its quajitity. This is the principle of my attachment 
to Y. I do not exactly like the modification, and 
there seems a defect of one article or two to entire- 
ness ; but I am gratified by the ample measure, Z., 
has both the ample quantity of being, and the charm- 
ing modification, and the entire number of parts ; 
Z., is therefore the most interestinsc individual 1 know. 

28. Aversion to selfJaiowledge. — In a numerous 
assembly or in the crowd of a city, it is presumed, 
by any one that happens to think of it, that very few, 
among the numbers round him, have a deep, com- 
prehensive, well-rectified, steady estimate of them- 
selves — a true insight. The presumption, or sur- 
mise, is understood to go even as far as this ; that 
suppose any number of persons, acquainted with one 
another — the judgments they form of one another 
would, in the whole account, be nearer the truth than 
those which they entertain of their ownselves, not- 
withstanding the great advantage men have for know- 
ing themselves better than others can There 

may be a reluctance to making a rigorous scrutiny, 
from fear, and thus men remain in ignorance. There 
may be some apprehension of finding the state of the 
case less satisfactory than the man is allowing him- 
self to assume it. This may seem like expressing an 
inconsistency — that a man will not know what he 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 171 

does know. Bat it is too real and common a case ; 
intimations of something not right are unwilHngly 
perceived ; apprehension of what there may be be 
neath is felt ; a man would rather not be sure of the 
whole truth ; would wilfully hope for the best, and 
so pass off* from the doubtful subject, afraid to go too 
far inward. 

But here is a most remarkable and strange specta- 
cle ! A soul afraid of itself ! afraid of being deeply 
intimate with itself; of knowing itself; of seeing 
itself, having had some glimpses of itself, afraid to 
meet its own full visage — afraid to stay with itself, 
alone, still, and attentive — afraid of intimate commu- 
nication, lest the soul should speak out from its in- 
most recesses ! All the while, what it is afraid of is 
its own very self, from which it is every where and 
for ever inseparable ! 

29. Escape from reflection. — It is a bad sign when 
we see a person in this state or feeling just merely 
anxious and endeavoring to escape from it ; when 
there is a horror of solitude ; a recourse to anything 
that will help to banish reflection ; such as change 
of place ; making excursions ; contriving visits and 
parties ; endeavoring to force the spirits up to the 
pitch of lively society; even trying amusements, when 
really little in the mood for amusement. This is a 
wretched and self-defrauding management, . . . Have 
you yet come to a determinate judgment on the state 
of your mind, in reference to its greatest interests 1 
If not, is a season of unusually grave feeling, of all 
times the wrong one for such a purpose ] Have you 
yet come to a full consent of the soul to take death 
and eternity into the system of your interests ; into 
an intimate combination with all that you are wish- 
ing, projecting, and pursuing? .... If there be any- 
thing dubious as to this great matter, are you impa- 
tient to hasten away into a state of feeling in which 



172 Foster's thoughts. 

you may slumber over such a question, and such a 
doubt 1 

30. Indisposition of mankind to think, makes the 
world a vast dormitory of souls. The heaven-ap- 
pointed destiny under which they are placed, seems 
to protect them from reflection ; there is an opium 
sky stretched over all the world, which continually 
rains soporifics. 

31. Thoughts the mirror of the heart. — Just left 
to themselves, to arise and act spontaneously, they 
would express the very state of the soul, its inclina- 
tions, perversions, ignorance, or any better quality 
there may be in it. So that if the involuntary thoughts 
could but strike against a mirror, a man might see 
his mental image. 

32. Fundamental cure of evil thoughts. — If there 
were a spot of marshy ground, which exhaled offen- 
sive vapors, it would be ridiculous to think of expe- 
dients to be used in the air above it, fumigations, or 
any such thing ; the ground itself jnust be drained 
and reclaimed. As to the correction of the mental 
vice in question, how evident it is that it is not to be 
a thing to operate solely on the thoughts themselves, 
rejecting, repelling, substituting, &c., but to operate 
primarily on that in the mind which causes their 
prevalence. The passions and affections are grand 
sources of thoughts — they therefore are to be in a 
rectified state not tending to produce vain thoughts. 

33. Gradatiou and fruits of wicked thoughts. — 
Thus vain thoughts, compared with vicious, pollu- 
ted thoughts, malignant thoughts, and blasphemous 
thoughts. O, the depth to which the investigation 
and the censure may descend ! 

We can easily picture to our minds some large 
neglected mansion in a foreign wilderness; the upper 
apartments in possession of swarms of disgusting in- 
sects ; the lower ones the haunt of savage beasts ; 
but the lowest, the subterraneous one, the retreat 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 173 

of serpents, and every loathsome living forai of the 

most deadly venom Never stagnant pool w^as 

more prolific of flies, nor the sv^^arm about it more 
wild and worthless ! . . . . Have they given and left 
me anything worth having 1 what ] Have they 
made me any wiser 1 wherein 1 What portion of 
previous ignorance have they cleared away '? In 
what point is my judgment rectified ] What good 
purpose have they fixed or forwarded ? What one 
thincr that was wrong has been corrected? or even 
more clearly seen how to be coiTected ? Is it, can 
it be the fact, that all that succession passed me but 
as the lights and shadows of an April day ? or as the 
insects that have flown past me in the air ? While 
ten thousand or a hundred thousand ideas have pass- 
ed my mind, might I really as well have had none ? 
.... Any grains of gold-dust deposited by the stream 
that has carried down so many millions of particles 
of mud 1 

34. Religion the noblest pursuit. — How could you 
estimate so meanly your mind with all its capacities, 
as to feel no regret that an endless series of trifles 
should seize, and occupy as their right, all your 
thoughts, and deny them both the liberty and the 
ambition of going on to the greatest object 1 How, 
while called to the contemplations which absorb the 
spirits of Heaven, could you be so patient of the task 
of counting the flies of a summer's day 1 

35. Vices flourishing in old age. — An old stump 
of an oak, with a few young shoots on its almost bare 
top. Analogy : youthful follies growing on old age. 

36. Splendid talents without virtuous philanthropy . 
— A still pool amid a most barren heath, shining 
resplendently in the morning sunshine. Analogy : 
talents accompanied with moral barrenness, that is, 
indolence or depravity. 

37. Limited acquirements from unlimited means of 
improvement. — What an astonishing mass o? pabulum 

15* 



174 Foster's thoughts. 

is consumed to sustain an individual human being ! 
How much nourishment I have consumed by eating 
and drinking; how much air. by breathing; how 
much of the element of affection my heart has claim- 
ed, and has sometimes lived in luxury, and sometimes 
starved ! Above all ! what an infinite sum of those 
instructions which are to feed the moral and intel- 
lectual man, have I consumed, and how poor the 
consequence ! What a despicable, dwarfish growth 
I exhibit to myself and to God at this hour ! 

Yes, how much it takes in this last respect, to grow 
how little ! Millions of valuable thoughts I suppose 
have passed through my mind. How often my con- 
science has admonished me! How many thousands 
of pious resolutions ! How all nature has preached 
to me ! How day and night, and solitude and the 
social scenes, and books and the bible, the gravity of 
sermons and the flippancy of fools, life and death, the 
ancient world and the modern, sea and land, and the 
omnipresent God ! have all concurred to instruct me ! 
and behold the miserable result of all ! ! I wonder 
if the measure of effect be a ten thousandth part of 
the bulk, to call it so, of this vast combination of 
causes. How far is this strange proportion between 
moral effects and their causes necessary in simj^le 
nature (analogically with the proportion between 
cause and consequence m j^hysical pabulum), and how 
far is it the indication and the consequence of nature 
being depraved ? However this may be, the enor- 
mous fact of the inefficacy of truth shades with mel- 
ancholy darkness to my view, all the hopes for my- 
self and for others, of any grand improvements in this 
world ! 

38. Vahcahle acquirements personal. — The man 
into whose house I step a quarter of an hour, or whom 
I meet on the road, or whose hand 1 take, and con- 
verse with him, looking in his face the while — he so 
near me, that walks with me, that traverses a field or 



FORMATIOxV OF CHARACTER. 175 

gits in an arbor with me — ^he may have a soul fraught 
with celestial fire, stores of science, brilliant ideas, 
magnanimous principles, while I— I that observe his 
countenance and hear him talk — may have nothing 
of all this. He may for the last ten years have been 
assiduous in studies day and night, while I have con- 
sumed the morning in sleep, and the day in indolent 
vacancy of every sentiment, except wishing, " which 
of all employments is the worst." What right have 
I to wish he should leave part of his animated and 
powerful character with me % But he can not, if he 
would. He takes his resplendent soul away, and 
leaves me to feel, that as lie is individual, so, too, un- 
fortunately, am I. The mind must operate within 
its own self, and by its own will; else, though sur- 
rounded by a legion of angels, it would be dark and 
stationary still. 

39. Api^roving the good hut pursuing the had. — 
There is the great affair — moral and religious improve- 
ment. What is the true business of life ? To gi'ow 
wiser, more pious, more benevolent, more ardent, 
more elevated in every noble purpose and action, to 
resemble the Divinity ! It is acknowledged ; who 
denies or doubts it? What then] Why, care noth- 
ing at all about it ! Sacrifice to trifles the energies 
of the heart, and the short and fleeting time allotted 
for divine attainments ! Such is the actual course 
of the world. What a thing is mankind ! 

40. Value of conversational power. — Struck, in two 
instances, with the immense importance, to a man of 
sense, of obtaining a conversational predominance, in 
order to be of any use in any company exceeding 
the smallest number. — Example, W. Frend. 

41. Assimilating influence of intercourse with men 
of genius. — A person who can be habitually in the 
company of a communicative man of original genius 
for a considerable time, without being greatly modi- 
fied, is either a very great, or a contemptibly little 



176 Foster's thoughts. 

being ; he has either the vigorous firmness of the oak, 
or the heavy firmness of the stone. 

42. Prope?' end of reading. — Readers in general 
who have an object beyond amusement, yet are not 
apprized of the most important use of reading, the 
acquisition oi ■power. Their knowledge is not pow- 
er; and, too, the memory retains but the small part 
of the knowledge of which a book should be full ; 
the grand object, then, should be to improve the 
strength and tone of the mind by a thinking, analyzing, 
discriminating, manner of reading. 

43. Gentleness tempered hy firmness, — A character 
should retain always the upright vigor of manliness; 
not let itself be bent and fixed in any specific form. 
It should be like an upright elastic tree, which bends, 
accommodating a little to each wind on every side, 
but never loses its spring and self-dependent vigor. 

44. Long familiarity with the fashionable world 
destroys the relish for the more substantial enjoyments 
of life. — After looking a good while on the glaring 
side of the view, my eye does not nicely distinguish 
these modest beauties in the shade. Analogy : a man 
whose feelings and habits are formed in splendid and 
fashionable life, has no relish for the charms of re- 
tirement, or of secluded, affectionate society. 

45. Character of courtiers. — Characters formed 
in the routine of a court, like pebbles in a brook, are 
rounded into a smooth unifoi'mity, in which the points 
and angles of virtuous singularity are lost. 

46. Great natural amiableness of character, seems 
not compatible with the sublimest virtue. — I doubt 
if S. is not too innocent to become sublimely excel- 
lent ; her heart is purity and kindness ; her recollec- 
tions are complacent ; her wishes and intentions are 
all good. In such a mind conscience becomes ef- 
feminate for want of hard exercise. She is exempt- 
ed from those revulsions of the heart, that remorse, 
those self-indignant regrets, those impetuous convic- 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 177 

tions, which sometimes assist to scourge the mind 
away from its stationary habits into such a region of 
daring and arduous virtue, as it would never have 
reached, nor even thought of, but for this mighty im- 
pulse of pain. Witness Albany in Cecilia. Vehe- 
ment emotion, mortifying contrast, shuddering alarm, 
sting the mind into an exertion of power it was un- 
conscious of before, and urge it on with restless 
velocity toward the attainment of that moral em- 
inence, short of which it would equally scorn and 
dread to repose. We fly from pain or terror more 
eagerly than we pursue good ; but if both these 
causes aid our advance ! 

A young eagle perhaps would never have quitted 
the warm luxury of its nest, and towered into the 
sky, if the parent had not pushed it or the tempest 
flung it off, and thus compelled it to fly by the dan- 
ger of perishing. Is it not too possible that S. may 
repose complacently in the innocent softness of her 
nest, and die without ever having unfolded the wing 
of sublime adventure. At sight of such a death one 
would weep with tenderness, not glow with admira- 
tion ; it is a charming woman that falls, not a radiant 
angel that rises. 

47. Exquisite susceptibility. — (Remark on the 
character of Green.) There is such a predominant 
habit of deep feeling in his mind, that the smallest 
touch, a single sentence, will instantly bring his mind 
and his very voice into that tone. Comparing him 
to a musical stringed instrument I should say, that he 
never needed /w?^^V^^; the strings are perfectly ready 
at any moment; you have only to touch them and 
they will sound harmoniously the genuine music of 
sentiment. 

48. Individuality of manners. — Stroke of descrip- 
tion of 's manners, when in the most advan- 
tageous form. " He is neither vulgar nor genteel, 
nor any compound of these two kinds of vulgarity. 



178 Foster's thoughts. 

He has the manners of no class, but something of a 
quite different order. His manners are a part of his 
soul, like the style of a writer -of genius. His man- 
ners belong to the individual. He makes you think 
neither of clown nor gentleman — but of man. 

49. Discrimination of cliaracter. — (Character of 
one of my acquaintance, whom a friend was descri- 
bing as melancholy.) " No ; her feelings are rather 
fretted than melancholy." 

50. Description of character. — (Feature of the 
character of one of my friends.) "Cautious without 
suspicion, and discriminating without fastidiousness." 

51. Description of cliaracter. — (Touch of descrip- 
tion of a young woman in the lower ranks, not cul- 
tivated into a girl of sense, yet not so thoughtlessly 
vacant as the comm9n vulgar.) " She has notions^ 

52. Description of character. — Ego. There is a 
want of continuity in your social character. You 
seem broken into fragments. H. Well, I sparkle in 
fragments. Ego. But how much better to shine 
whole, like a mirror % 

53. Effect of amusements. — Against amusements, 
defended on the plea of necessary relaxation. I 
maintain that excitement is excitability too. An an- 
imated, affecting interest, supplies to the mind more 
than it consumes. The further a man advances in 
the ardor that belongs to a noble employment and 
object, the more mightily he lives. Other men will per- 
haps advance with him to a certain point, and there 
they stop — he goes on; now the 7" <2z^?'o of his progress 
and his animation is comparatively greater on that 
far-advanced ground beyond v\'here they left him, 
than within an equal space in the earlier part of the 
course. The mind inspired with this enthusiasm as- 
serts its grandeur. It expands toward eternity, an- 
ticipative of its destiny. It lives, as Alonzo says, not 
by the vulgar calculation of months and years, but 
along the progression of sublime attainment, and 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 179 

amid the flames of an ardor which whirls it like a 
comet toward the sun. 

Would you be a stranger to this energy of soul — 
or, feeling it, would you prostitute it to seek a poor 
factitious interest in systematic trifling? 

54. Poiver of bad liahit. — I know from experience 
that habit can, in direct opposition to every convic- 
tion of the mind, and but little aided by the elements 
of temptation (such as present pleasure, &c.), induce 
a repetition of the most unworthy actions. The mind 
is weak where it has once given way. It is long be- 
fore a principle restored can become as firm as one 
that has never been moved. It is as in the case of a 
mound of a reservoir : if this mound has in one place 
been broken, whatever care has been taken to make 
the repaired part as strong as possible, the probabil- 
ity is, that if it give away again, it will be in that 
place. 

55. The importance and necessity of a ruling pas- 
sion — that is, some grand object, the view of which 
kindles all the ardor the soul is capable of, to attain 
or accomplish it — possibility of creating a ruling pas- 
sion asserted. 

56. Danger of an exclusive pursuit. — I have the 
highest opinion of the value of a ruling passion ; but 
if this passion monopolizes all the man, it requires 
that the object be a very comprehensive or a very 
dignified one, to save him from being ridiculous. 
The devoted antiquary, for instance, who is passion- 
ately fond of an old coin, an old button, or an old 
nail, is ridiculous. The man who is nothing hut a 
musician, and recognises nothing in the whole crea- 
tion but crotchets and quavers, is ridiculous. So is 
the jiothing hut verbal critic, to whom the adjustment 
of a few insignificant particles in some ancient author 
appears a more important study than the grandest 
arrangement of politics or morals. Even the total 
devotee to the grand science, astronomy y incurs the 



180 poster's thoughts. 

same misfortune. Religion and morals have a noble 
pre-eminence here ; no man can become ridiculous 
by his passionate devotion to them ; even a specific 
direction of this passion will make a man sublime — 
w\tnes,s, Hoivard ; specific,! sn,j,B,nd correctly, though, 
at the same time, a?iy]sirge plan of benevolence must 
be comprehensive, so to speak, of a large quantity of 
morals. 

57. Important points ascertained. — (1.) Inmypres- 
ent circumstances, taken as they are, setting all the 
past aside, some one thing is ahsolutely the hest thing 
I can design or do. (2.) My present sphere and 
course of action is most certainly not the best that 
can be. In proof of this assertion several conclusive 
reasons can be alleged. (3.) It strictly follows that, 
to change this sphere and this course, is decisively a 
part of my duty. (4.) And inasmuch as life is valu- 
able, and utility is its value, it is clear that the case is 
urgent, and that I am required to attempt this change 
with zeal and with speed. (5.) The greatest good is 
to be my sovereign principle and object of action. 
(6.) Incidental principle : to make the plans I adopt 
for the improvement of my own mind, contribute 
equally, if possible, to the improvement of others (by 
writing letters, and otherwise). (7.) Is not this world 
a proper scene for a benevolent and ardent mind 1 
There are bodies to heal, minds to enlighten and re- 
form, social institutions to change, children to edu- 
cate. In all this is there nothing that I can dol ! ! 
(8.) One of these two things, viz., congenial society, 
and a sphere of urgency and action, seem absolutely 
necessary to save my energies from torpor or extinc- 
tion. If I could gain both ! (9.) Oh, how I repro- 
bate this indecision as to what character I will as- 
sume, and what designs I will attempt ! (10.) I deem 
myself a man of capacity beyond the common ; my 
plan of action ought therefore to include as little as 
possible of that which common capacity can perform 



FORMATION OF CHARACTEll. 181 

as well as mine ; and as much as possible of what 
requires, and will educe, this superiority of ability 
which I attribute to myself (H) I want to extend, 
as it were, and augment my being and its interests ; 
there is one mean of doing this, which, &c. 

58, Progressive for VI ation of character overlooked. 
— I have observed that most ladies who have had 
what is considered as an education, have no idea of 
an education progressive through life. Having at- 
tained a certain measure of accomplishment, knowl- 
edge, manners, &c., they consider themselves as made 
up, and so take their station ; they are pictures which, 
being quite finished, are put in a frame — a gilded 
one, if possible — and hung up in permanence uf 
beauty ! in permanence, that is to say, till Old Time, 
with his rude and dirty fingers, soil the charming 
colors. 

59. Tower of popular intelligence and virtue. — A 
people advanced to such a state would make its moral 
power felt in a thousand ways, and every moment. 
This general augmentation of sense and right princi- 
ple would send forth, against all arrangements and in- 
veterate or more modern usages, of the nature of in- 
vidious exclusion, arbitrary repression, and the de- 
basement of great public interests into a detestable 
private traffic, an energy which could no more be 
resisted than the power of the sun when he advances 
in the spring to annihilate the relics and vestiges of 

the winter There is, indeed, a hemisphere of 

" gross darkness over the people ;" it may be possi- 
ble to withhold from it long the illumination of the 
sun ; but in the meantime it has been rent by porten- 
tous lights and flashes, which have excited a thought 
and agitation not to be stilled by the continuance of 
the gloom. There have come in on the popular mind 
some ideas, which the wisest of those who dread or 
hate their effect there, look around in vain for the 
means of expelling. And these glimpses of partial 

16 



182 Foster's thoughts. 

intelligence, these lights of dubious and possibly de- 
structive direction amid the night, will continue to 
prompt and lead that mind, with a hazard which can 
cease only with the opening upon it of the true day- 
light of knowledge. 

60. Moral illumination intercepted hy 'popular ig- 
norance. — How should a man in the rudeness of an 
intellect left completely ignorant of truth in general, 
have a luminous apprehension of its most important 
division ? There could not be in men's minds a phe- 
nomenon similar to what we image to ourselves of 
Groshen in the preternatural night of Egypt, a space 
of perfect light, defined out by a precise limit amid 
the general darkness. . . . These latter, so environed, 
would be in a condition too like that of a candle in 
the mephitic air of a vault. 

61. A soul confined hy i'inp)ervious prison-walls of 
ignorance. — We can imagine this ill-fated spirit, es- 
pecially if by nature of the somewhat finer tempera- 
ment, thus detached from all vital connexion, secluded 
from the whole universe, and enclosed as by a prison- 
wall — we can imafj:ine it sometimes moved with an 
indistinct longing for its appropriate interests ; and 
going round and round by this dark, dead wall, to 
seek for any spot where there might be a chance of 
escape, or any crevice where a living element for the 
soul transpires ; and then, as feeling it all in vain, de- 
jectedly resigning itself again to its doom. 

62. Affecting retrospective view of the ignorance of 
the world. — We of the present time are convicted of 
exceeding stupidity, if we think it not worth while to 
go a number of ages back to contemplate the mass 
of mankind, the wide world of beings such as our- 
selves, sunk in darkness and wretchedness, and to 
consider what it is that is taught by so melancholy an 
exhibition. What is to give fullness of evidence to 
an instruction, if a world be too narrow ? what is to 
give weight, if a world be too light? 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 183 

63. Freedom and spontaneous emanation ofJcnowl- 
edge. — Knowledge, which was formerly a thing to be 
searched and dug for " as for hid treasures," has 
seemed at last beginning to effloresce through the 
surface of the ground on all sides of us. 

64. Mind extinguished hy the body. — By the very 
constitution of the human nature, the mind sefems half 
to belong to the senses, it is so shut within them, af- 
fected by them, dependent on them for pleasure, as 
well as for activity, and impotent but through their 
medium. 

65. Knowledge like the sun. — To say that under 
long absence of the sun any tract of terrestrial nature 
must infallibly be reduced to desolation, is not to say 
or imply that under the benignant influence of that 
luminary the same region must, as necessarily and 
unconditionally, be a scene of beauty ; but the only 
hope, for the only possibility, is for the field visited 
by much of that sweet influence. 

66. Secidar knowledge associated with religious. — 
They will talk of giving the people an education spe- 
cifically religious ; a training to conduct them on 
through a close avenue, looking straight before them 
to descry distant spiritual objects, while shut out from 
all the scene right and left, by fences that tell them 
there is nothing that concerns them there. There 
may be rich and beautiful fields of knowledge, but 
they are not to be trampled by vulgar feet. 

67. Estimate of the influence of education. — Like 
trying to specify, in brief terms, what a highly-im- 
proved portion of the ground, in a tract rude and 
sterile if left to itself, has received from cultivation; 
an attempt which would carry back the imagination 
through a progression of states and appearances, in 
which the now fertile spots, and picture-like scenes, 
and commodious passes, and pleasant habitations, 
may or must have existed in the advance from the 
original rudeness. ... If, while these benefits are com- 



184 poster's thoughts. 

ing so numerously in his sight, like an irregular crowd 
of loaded fruit-trees, one partially seen behind the 
offered luxury of another, and others still descried, 
through intervals, in the distances, he can imagine 
them all devastated and swept away from him, leav- 
ing him in a scene of mental desolation — and if he 
shall then consider that nearly such is the state of the 
great multitude — he will surely feel that a deep com- 
passion is due to so depressed a condition of exist- 
ence. ... A few false notions, such as could hardly 
fail to take the place of absent truth in the ignorant 
mind, however crude they might be, and however 
deficient for constituting a full system of error, would 
be sure to dilate themselves so as to have an opera- 
tion at all the points where truth is wanting. . . . The 
dark void of ignorance, instead of remaining a mere 
negation, becomes filled with agents of perversion 
and destruction ; as sometimes the gloomy apartments 
of a deserted mansion have become a den of robbers 

and murderers The conjunction o? truths is of 

the utmost importance for preserving the genuine 
tendency, and securing the appropriate efficacy, of 
each. It is an unhappy " lack of knowledge" when 
there is not enough to preserve, to what there is of 
it, the honest, beneficial quality of knowledge. How 
many of the follies, excesses, and crimes, in the course 
of the world, have taken their pretended warrant from 
some fragment of truth, dissevered from the connex- 
ion of truths indispensable to its right operation, and 
in that detached state easily perverted into coales- 
cence with the most pernicious principles, which con- 
cealed and gave effect to their malignity under the 
falsified authority of a ti'uth. 

68. Prevailing j)C'^ve7-sio7i of conscience. — Every 
serious observer has been struck and almost shocked 
to observe, in what a very small degree conscience 
is a necessary attribute of the human creature ; and 
how nearly a nonentity the whole system of moral 



FORMATION OF CHARACTER. 185 

principles may be, as to any recognition of it by an 
unadapted spirit. While that system is of a sub- 
stance veritable and eternal, and stands forth in its 
exceeding breadth, marked with the strongest char- 
acters and prominences, it has to these persons hardly 
the reality or definiteness of a shadow, except in a 
few matters, if we may so express it, of the grossest 
bulk. There must be glaring evidence of something 
bad in what is done, or questioned whether to be 
done, before conscience will come to its duty, or give 
proof of its existence. There must be a violent alarm 
of mischief or danger before this drowsy and igno- 
rant magistrate will interfere. 
16* 



186 poster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

YOUTH ITS ADVANTAGES AND PERILS DOMESTIC 

LIFE AND VIRTUES EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 

1. Active powers of youth. — How precious a thing 
is youthful energy ; if only it could be preserved en- 
tirely englohed, as it v^i^ere, within the bosom of the 
young adventurer, till he can come and offer it forth 
a sacred emanation in yonder temple of truth and 
virtue ; but, alas ! all along as he goes toward it, he 
advances through an avenue, formed by a long line 
of tempters and demons on each side, all prompt to 
touch him with their conductors, and draw this divine 
electric element, with which he is charged, away ! 

2. Temptations of youth. — It would be a fine posi- 
tion, doubtless, for a man to stand on a spot where 
there was a powerful action of all the elements al- 
most close around him ; the earth he stood on bloom- 
ing with flowers ; water thrown in impetuous falls 
and torrents on the one side — some superb fire near 
at hand on the other — and the winds whirling, as if 
to exasperate them both ; but he would need look 
carefully to his movements, especially if informed 
that others carelessly standing there had been whirled 
into destruction; or if he saw the fact. Let young 
persons observe what is actually becoming of those 
who surrender themselves to their passions and wild 
propensities. What numbers ! Then in themselves 
observe seriously whither these inward traitors and 
tempters really tend ; and then think whether sober- 



YOUTH. 187 

ness of mind be not a pearl of great price, and wheth- 
er there can be any such thing without a systematic 
self-government. 

3. Successive periods of life soon passed. — Let it not 
be forgotten that youth will soon be passed away. 
Nay, there is even the wish in its possessors for the 
larger portion of it to haste away ! A most striking 
illustration of the vanity of our state on earth. It 
rapidly runs on to the longed-for age of twenty. But 
there it retains its impetus of motion, and runs be- 
yond that point as fast as it ran thither. With what 
magical fleetness it passes away till it loses its quality, 
and life is youth no more ! 

4. Disregard of the experience of others an ill omen. 
It is a bad sign in youth- to be utterly heedless of the 
dictates of the experience of persons more advanced 
in life. It is, indeed, impossible for youth to enter 
fully into the spirit of such experience. But to de- 
spise it, to fancy it proceeds entirely from disappoint- 
ment, mortified feeling, moroseness, or the mere 
coldness of age, augurs ill — and so these young per- 
sons themselves will think, when they, in their turn, 
come to inculcate the lessons of tlieir more aged ex- 
perience. 

5. The harvest of later life must correspond with the 
seeding of youth. — If there be a vain, giddy, thought- 
less, ill-improved youth, the effects of it will infalli- 
bly come in after-life. If there be a neglected un- 
derstanding, a conscience feebly and rudely constitu- 
ted, good principles but slightly fixed or even appre- 
hended, an habitual levity of spirit, a chase of frivolities, 
a surrender to the passions — the natural consequences 
of these will follow. 

6. Time is the greatest of tyrants. — As we go on 
toward age, he taxes our health, our limbs, our facul- 
ties, our strength, and our features. 

7. Youth is not like a new garment, which we can 
keep fresh and fair by wearing sparingly. Youth, 



188 Foster's thoughts. 

while we have it, we must wear daily, and it will fast 
wear away. 

8. Tlie retrospect on youth is too often like looking 
back on what was a fair and promising country, but 
is now desolated, by an overwhelming torrent, from 
which we have just escaped. 

9. Or it is like visiting the grave of a friend whom 
we had injured, and are precluded by his death from 
the possibility of making him an atonement. 

10. The whole system of life goes on this principle 
of selling oneself: then the question of estimates 
should for ever recur — " My time for this ,?" — " and 
this .?" 

11. Frice of pleasure. — All pleasure must be bought 
at the price of pain. The difference between false 
pleasure and true is just this : for the true, the price 
is paid before you enjoy it; for the false, after you 
enjoy it. 

12. Deplored neglect of culture of youth. — How 
much I regret to see so generally abandoned to the 
weeds of vanity that fertile and vigorous space of life, 
in which might he planted the oaks and fruit-trees of 
enlightened principle and virtuous habit, which, grow- 
ing up, would yield to old age an enjoyment, a glory, 
and a shade ! 

13. Inserisibility to the ajrproach of old age.— it is 
a most amazing thing that young people never con- 
sider they shall grow old. I would, to young women 
especially, renew the monition of this anticipation ev- 
ery hour of every day. I wish we could make all 
the criers, watchmen, ballad-singers, and even par- 
rots, repeat to them continually, *' You will be an 
old woman — you will — and you." Then, if they have 
left themselves to depend, almost entirely, as most of 
them do, on exterior and casual accommodations, 
they will be wretchedly neglected. No beaux will 
then draw a chair close to them, and sweetly simper, 



YOUTH. 189 

and whisper that the bowers of paradise did not afford 
so delightful a place. 

14. True value of youth. — (Conclusion of a moral, 
monitory letter to a young acquaintance.) — I scarce- 
ly need to remark on the value of youth, with all its liv- 
ing energy ; but I may express my regret at seeing all 
around me, a possession so sweet and fair, so miser- 
ably poisoned and stained. I have only a question 
or two for you. Why do you think it happy to he 
young ] why % When you shall be advanced tow- 
ard the conclusion of life, why will you think it happy 
to have been young ? Is there the least possibihty or 
danger that tlien you may not think so at all ? Why 
do you look with pleasure on the scene of coming 
life 1 Does the pleasure spring from a sentiment less 
noble than the hope of securing, as you go on, those 
inestimable attainments, which will not decay with 
declining life, and may consequently set age, and time, 
and dissolution, at defiance ? You gladly now see 
life before you, but there is a moment which you are 
destined to meet when you will have passed across 
it, and will find yourself at the farther edge. Are 
you perfectly certain that at that moment you will 
be in possession of something that will enable you 
not to care that life is gone ? If you should not, what 
then 1 

15. Youth improved makes old age liappy. — How 
often you see in the old persons who spent so gay 
a youth, an extinction of all the fire ! Sometimes 
they try to brighten up for a moment, but they be- 
tray an exhaustion and desertion. They are sensible 
that life is nearly gone by. But its close they can 
not bear to think of, no more than when they were 
young ; but have no longer the youthful means of 
driving away the thought. They are sometimes pen- 
sively gloomy ; often peevishly and morosely so. Oh ! 
had they but in early life consecrated the animation 
of their spirits, by giving a larger share of it to God, 



190 Foster's thoughts. 

to reserve it for them ! Had they often tempered 
and repressed the vivacity of their hearts, by solemn 
thoughts of hereafter, by a vigorous apphcation to 
wisdom ! they might have been fired with spirit and 
animation now, which not the approach of death 
could chill or quench ! nay, would have burnt the 
brighter in that formidable atmosphere. 

16. Philosojjhy of the happiness of domestic, and all 
human alliances. — 1 have often contended that at- 
tachments between friends and lovers can not be se- 
cured strong, and perpetually augmenting, except by 
the intervention of some interest which is not person- 
al, but which is common to them both, and toward 
which their attentions and passions are directed with 
still more animation than even toward each other. 
If the whole attention is to be directed, and the whole 
sentimentalism of the heart concentrated on each 
other ; if it is to be an unvaried, " I toward you, and 
you toicard me,''^ as if each were to the other, not an 
ally or companion joined to pursue happiness, but 
the very end and object — happiness itself ; if it is the 
circumstance of reciprocation itself, and not what is 
reciprocated, that is to supply perennial interest to 
affection ; if it is to be mind still reflecting back the 
gaze of mind, and reflecting it again, cherub toward 
cherub, as on the ark, and no luminary or glory be- 
tween them to supply beams and warmth to both — 
I foresee that the hope will disappoint, the plan will 
fail. Affection, on these terms, will be reduced to 
the condition of a famishing animal's stomach, the 
opposite sides of which, for want of pabulum intro- 
duced, meet and digest, and consume each other. 
Attachment must burn in oxygen, or it will go out; 
and, by oxygen, I mean a mutual admiration and 
pursuit of virtue, improvement, utility, the pleasures 
of taste, or some other interesting concern, which 
shall be the element of their commerce, and make 



DOMESTIC LIFE. 191 

them love each other not on\yJor each other, but as 
devotees to some third object which they both adore. 
The affections of the soul will feel a dissatisfaction 
and a recoil if, as they go forth, they are entirely in- 
tercepted and stopped by any object that is not ideal ; 
they wish rather to be like rays of light glancing on 
the side of an object, and then sloping and passing 
away; they wish the power of elongation, through a 
series of interesting points, on toward infinity. 

Human society is avast circle of beings on a plain, 
in the midst of which stands the shrine of goodness 
and happiness, inviting all to approach ; now the 
attached pairs in this circle should not be continually 
looking on each other, but should turn their faces 
very often toward this central object, and as they 
advance, they will, like radii from the circumference 
to the centre, continually become closer to each oth- 
er, as they approximate to their mutual and ultimate 
object. 

17. Growing strength of mutual affections. — One 
should think that a tender friendship might become 
more intimate and entire the older the parties grew; 
as two trees planted near each other, the higher they 
grow and the more widely they spread — intermingle 
more completely their branches and their foliage. 

18. Necessities of man^s social nature. — We called 
on an affable, worthy, pious woman rather beginning 
to be aged (never married), who lives quite alone. 
Asked her whether she had not sometimes painful cra- 
vings for society. She said she had not; and that her 
habit was so settled to solitude, that she often felt the 
occasional hour spent with some other human beings 
tedious and teasing. We could not explain this fact. 
Long conversation, in walking on, respecting the so- 
cial nature of man. Why is this being, that looks at 
me and talks, whose bosom is wann, and whose na- 
ture and wants resemble my own — necessary to me ? 
This kindred being whom I love, is more to me than 



192 poster's thoughts. 

all yonder stars of lieaven, and than all the inanimate 
objects on earth. Delightful necessity of my nature ! 
But to what a world of disappointments and vexations 
is this social feeUng liable, and how few are made 
happy by it, in any such degree as I picture to my- 
self and long for ! 

19. Disturbances of 7nutual conjidence and affection 
not necessary to confirm them. — When expressing a 
conjecture that, as in the previous course of love, so 
after marriage, it may hQ that reconciliations after 
disagreements are accompanied by a peculiar fas- 
cinating tenderness — I was told by a very sensible 
experimentalist that the possibility of this feeling 
continues but for a while, and that it will be ex- 
tremely perceptible when the period is come, that no 
such felicitous charm will compensate for domestic 
misunderstandings. J, however, can not but think 
that when this period is come, the sentimental en- 
thusiasm is greatly subsided — that its most enchant- 
ing interest is, indeed, quite gone off. 

20. Incipient domestic disputes greatly to he dread- 
ed. — A very respectable widow, remarking on mat- 
rimonial quarrels, said that the first quarrel that goes 
the length of any harsh or contemptuous language, 
is an unfortunate epoch in married life, for that the 
delicate respectfulness being thus once broken down, 
the same kind of language much more easily comes 
afterward; there is a feeling of having ?e*5 to love 
than before. 

21. How far should mutual confidence he extended 1 
— Whether two much-attached friends, suppose a 
married pair, might adopt a system of confidence so 
entire, as to be total confessors to each other ; dis- 
closing, for instance, at the end of each day, all the 
most unworthy or ungracious ideas and feelings that 
had passed through their minds during the course 
of it, both with respect to each other, and any other 
question or thing ? 



DOMESTIC LIFE. 193 

22. Delicate C07icealment of ignoi'ance or error of 
a companion. — One lias been amused sometimes, 
when one of the domestic associates has advanced 
an opinion, or recited a su}3posed fact, which the other 
has thought extremely absurd, to see that other in 
haste to express his or her contempt of such folly of 
opinion, or credulity of belief, instead of silently 
sliding the circumstance or the subject out of con- 
versation, or mildly expressing that he or she can not 
entirely concur in opinion or belief, and endeavoring 
to make as good a retreat as possible for the associ- 
ate's ignorance or weakness. I say, one has been 
amused; but in some instances one has felt a painful 
sympathy with the person so treated with scorn by an 
intimate relative, and before a number of witnesses, 
each of whom would have politely let pass the un- 
fortunate remark or narration. Striking instances 
in Mr. and Mrs. , and Dr. and Mrs. . 

23. In domestic disputes, a toant of sentiment in the 
parties, greatly diminishes suffering. — Among mar- 
ried persons of the common size and texture of minds, 
the grievances they occasion one another are rather 
feelings of irritated temper than of hurt sentiment ; 
an important distinction. Of the latter perhaps they 
were never capable, or perhaps have long since worn 
out the capability* Their pain, therefore, is far less 
deep and acute than a sentimental observer would 
suppose or would in the same circumstances, with 
their oion feelings, suffer. 

24. In congenial domestic alliances a hopeless pre- 
dicainent. — A man or woman with a stupid or per- 
verse partner, but still hoping to see this partner be- 
come all that is desired, is like a man with a wooden 
leg wishing it might become a vital one, and some- 
times for a moment fancying this almost possible. 

25. Inconsiderate domestic alliances. — Their court- 
ship was carried on in poetry. Alas ! many an en- 

17 



194 Foster's thoughts. 

amored pair have courted in poetry, and after mar- 
riage, lived in. prose. 

26. Early education greatly defective. — Education 
always appears to me as the one thing which, taken 
generally, is the most vilely managed on earth. 

27. Undue restraint of children to he deprecated. — 
A very important principle in education, never to 
confine children long to any one occupation or place. 
It is totally against their nature, as indicated in all 
their voluntary exercises. Was very much struck 
with this consideration to-day. I was incommoded 
a while by three or four children in front of the 
house, who made an obsteperous noise, from the glee 
of some amusement that seemed to please them ex- 
ceedingly. But I knew that they would not be pleased 
very long ; accordingly in about half an hour th.ey 
were tired of sport, and went off in quest of some- 
thing else. I inferred the impossibility, in the disci- 
pline of education, of totally restraining the innate 
propensity, and the folly of attempting it. 

28. Education of children in simple hahits imjjort- 
ant. — Interesting conversation W\\\\ Mr. S. on edu- 
cation. Astonishment and grief at the folly, espe- 
cially in times like the present, of those parents who 
totally forget, in the formation of their children's 
habits, to inspire that vigorous independence which 
acknowledges the smallest possible number of wants, 
and so avoids or triumphs over the negation of a 
thousand indulgences, by always having been taught 
and accustomed to do without them. " How many 
things," says Socrates, " I do not want." 

29. Children's hall — a detestable vanity. Mamma 
solicitously busy for several weeks previously, with 
a,ll the assistance too of milliners diudi tasteful friends, 
with lengthened dissertations, for the sole purpose 
of equipping two or three children to appear in one 
of these miserable exhibitions. The whole business 



EDUCATION OP CHILDREN. 195 

seems a contrivance, expressly intended to concen- 
trate to a focus of preternatural heat and stimulus 
every vanity and frivolity of the time, in order to 
blast for ever the simplicity of their little souls, and 
kindle their vain propensities into a thousand times 
the force that mere nature could ever have supplied. 

30. Proper cojnpanionsliip of children important. 
— Observed with regret one or two children of a 
respectable family mingling in this group with sev- 
eral little dirty, profane blackguards. Qu. As to the 
best method of preventing all communication of chil- 
dren meant to be educated in the best manner, with 
all other children, whether of the vulgar class, or the 
genteel, which will do as much mischief as the vulgar. 

31. True scope and aim of education. — Judicious 
education anxiously displays to its pupils its own in- 
sufficiency and confined scope, and tells them that 
this whole earth can be but a place of tuition, till it 
become either a depopulated ruin, or an Elysium of 
perfect and happy beings. Its object is to qualify 
them for entering with advantage into the greater 
school where the whole of life is to be spent, and its 
last emphatic lesson is to enforce the necessity of an 
ever-watchful discipline, which must be imposed by 
each individual self, when exempted from all external 
authority. The privileges, the hazards, and the ac- 
countableness of this maturity of life, and the con- 
signment to one's self, make it an interesting situa- 
tion. It is to be intrusted with the care of a being 
infinitely dear, whose destiny is yet unknown, whose 
faculties are not fully expanded, whose interests we 
but dimly ascertain, whose happiness we may throw 
away, and whose animation we had rather indulge to 
revel than train to labor. 

32. Fearful responsibility of parents. — Will en- 
deavor not to forget the impressive lessons on educa- 
tion, both as to the importance and the mode of it, 
supplied by Mr. 's family, the best school for in- 



196 poster's thoughts. 

struction on this subject I ever saw. In that family, 
the whole system and all the parts of it are so correct- 
ly and transcendcntly had, that it is only necessary 
to adopt a directly opposite plan in every point to be 
exactly right. 

I suppose it never occurs to parents that to throw 
vilely-educated young people on the world is, in- 
dependently of the injury to the young people them- 
selves, a positive crime, and of very great magnitude ; 
as great for instance, as burning their neighbor's 
house, or poisoning the water in his well. In point- 
ing out to them what is wrong, even if they acknowl- 
edge the justness of the statement, one can not make 
them feel a sense o{ guilt, as in other proved charges. 
That they Zoi'c their children extenuates to their con- 
sciences every parental folly that may at last produce 
in the children every desperate vice. 

33. Rules for early religious education. — Perhaps 
one of the most prudential rules respecting the en- 
forcement on the minds of children of the conviction 
that they are accountable to an all-seeing though un- 
seen Governor, and liable to the punishment of ob- 
stinate guilt in a future state, is, to take opportuni- 
ties of impressing this idea the most cogently, at 
seasons when the children are not lying under any 
blame or displeasure, at moments of serious kindness 
on the part of the parents, and serious inquisitiveness 
on the part of the children, leaving in some degree the 
conviction to have its own effect, greater or less, in 
each particular instance of guilt, according to the 
greater or less degree of aggravation which the child's 
own conscience can be made secretly to acknowledge 
in that guilt. And another obvious rule will be, that 
when he is to be solemnly reminded of these religious 
sanctions and dangers in immediate connexion with 
an actual instance of criminality in his conduct, the 
instance should be one of the most serious of his faults, 
that will bear the utmost seriousness of such an ad- 



EDUCATION OF CHILDREN. 1^7 

monition. As to how early in life this doctrine may 
be communicated, there needs no more precise rule 
than this ; that it may be as early as well-instructed 
children are found to show any signs of prolonged 
or returning inquisitiveness concerning the supreme 
cause of all that they behold, and concerning what 
becomes of persons known to them in their neighbor- 
hood, whom they find passing, one after another, 
through the change called death, about which their 
curiosity will not be at all satisfied by merely leara- 

ing its name There is an absolute necessity of 

presenting these ideas in a coiTect though inadequate 
form as early as possible to the mind, to prevent their 
being fixed there in a foiTU that shall be absurd and 

injurious They may be taught to apprehend it 

as an avvful reality, that they are peipetually under 
his inspection ; and as a certainty, that they must at 
length appear before him in judgment, and find, in 
another life, the consequences of what they are in « 
spirit and conduct here. It is to be impressed on 
them, that his will is the supreme law ; that his dec- 
larations are the most momentous truth known on 
earth ; and his favor and condemnation the greatest 
good and evil. 

34. Said of a lady who infamously spoilt her son — 
a most 2jerverse child. — She will have her reward; 
she cultivates a night-shade, and is destined to eat its 
poisoned berries. 

35. Apprehensions of parents for the welfare of 
their children. — I constantly and systematically re- 
gard this world with such horror, as a place for the 
rising human beings to come into, that it is an em- 
phatical satisfaction, I may say pleasure, to me (ex- 
cept in a few cases of rare promise), to hear of their 
prematurely leaving it. I have innumerable times 
been amazed that parents should not, in this view, be 
greatly consoled in their loss. Let them look at this 
world ! with sin, temptations, snares of the devil, bad 

17* 



198 poster's thoughts. 

examples, seducing companions, disasters, vexations, 
dishonors, and afflictions, all over it; and their chil- 
dren to enter the scene with a radically corrupt na- 
ture, adapted to receive the mischief of all its worst 
influences and impressions ; let them look at all this, 
and then say, deliberately, whether it be not well 
that their children are saved these dreadful dangers ! 
Let them behold what the vast majority of children 
do actually become — have actually become, in ma- 
ture life; many of them, millions of them ! decided- 
ly bad and wretched, and causes of what is bad and 
wretched around them ; and, short of this worst event, 
an immense majority of them careless of religion, sal- 
vation, eternity ! T repeat, let them look at all this, 
and then ask themselves, whether it be not a vain 
presumption that exactly their children, nay, every 
parent in his turn, m.y children, are sure to be ex- 
ceptions. 



FRAILTY OF LIFE. 199 



CHAPTER IX. 

HUMAN LIFE : ITS FRAILTY AND BREVITY FUTURE 

LIFE : ITS MYSTERIES AND REVELATIONS PERSUA- 
SIVES TO A CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

1. Reason of the undue influence of things seen. — 
The power of objects to interest the affections, de- 
pends on their being objects of sight. The affections 
often seem reluctant to admit objects to their inter- 
nal communion except through the avenues of the 
senses. The objects must be, as it were, authenti- 
cated by the senses, must first occupy and please them 
— or they are regarded by the inner faculties as some- 
thing strange, foreign, out of our sympathies, or un- 
real. . . . The objects which we can see, give a more 
positive and direct impression of reality ; there can 
be no dubious surmise whether they exist or not ; the 
sense of their presence is more absolute. When an 
object is seen before me, or beside me, I am instantly 
in all the relations of being present ; I can not feel 
and act as if no such object were there ; I can not by 
an act of my mind put it away from me Visi- 
ble objects, when they have been seen, can be clearly 
kept in mind in absence — during long periods — at 
the greatest distance. We can revert to the time 
when they were seen. We can have a lively image ; 
seem to be looking at it still. But the great objects 
of faith having never been seen, the mind has no ex- 
press type to revert to. The idea of them is to be 
still again and again formed anew ; fluctuates and 
varies; is brighter and dimmer; alternates as b<i- 
tween substance and shadow. 



200 Foster's thoughts. 

2. Intimations of the transitoriness of life. — If the 
soul would expand itself, and with a lively sensibility 
to receive upon it the significance, the glancing inti- 
mation, the whispered monition of all things that are 
adapted to remind it of the fact — what a host of ideas 
would strike it ! Then we should hardly see a shadow 
pass, or a vapor rise, or a flower fade, or a leaf fall, 
still less a human visage withered in age, but we 
should have a thought of the transient continuance 
of our life. 

3. Man fades as a leaf — The infinite masses of 
foliage, which unfolded so beautifully in vegetable 
life, in the spring, and have adorned our landscape 
during the summer, have faded, fallen, and perished. 
We have beheld the " grace of the fashion" of them 
disclosed, continuing awhile bright in the sunshine, 
and gone for ever. Now we are admonished not to 
see the very leaves fade, without being reminded that 

something else IS, also fading Can any of us say 

they have had, during the recent season, as distinct 
and prolonged a reflection on the fact that our own 
mortal existence is fading, as we have had a percep- 
tion of the fading and extinction of vegetable life 1 It 
would seem as if the continued pressure of ill health, 
or the habitual spectacle of sickness and decline in 
our friends, were necessary in order to keep us re- 
minded of" the truth which is expressed in the text. 

4. Man fades while Nature blooms. — Amid this 
glowing life of the vernal season, there are languor, 
and sickness, and infirm old age, and death ! While 
Nature smiles, there are many pale countenances 
that do not. Sometimes you have met, slowly pacing 
the green meadow or the garden, a figure emaciated 
by illness, or feeble with age ; and were the more 
forcibly struck by the spectacle as seen amid a luxu- 
riance of life. For a moment, you have felt as if all 
the living beauty faded or receded from around, in 
the shock of the contrast. You may have gone into 



FRAILTY OF LIFE. 201 

a house beset with roses and all the pride of spring, 
to see a person lingering and sinking in the last fee- 
bleness of mortality. You may have seen a funeral 
train passing through a flowery avenue. The ground 
which is the depository of the dead, bears, not the 
less for that, its share of the beauty of spring. The 
great course of Nature pays no regard to the partic- 
ular circumstances of man — no suspension, no sym- 
pathy. 

5. Winter, tliough denying other gifts, yields a 
grave. — Look at the earth, speaking generally ! look 
at the trees ! an obdurate negation — an appearance 
of having ceased to be for us — under a mighty inter- 
dict of Heaven ! We might nearly as well go to the 
graves of the dead to ask for sympathy and aid. The 
ground seems not willing to yield us anything but a 
grave ; and that it is yielding every day to numbers 
to whom it would have yielded nothing else ! Stri- 
king consideration, that for this service the earth is 
always ready ! How many graves for the dying it 
will afford during these months, in which it will af- 
ford no sustenance to the living ! Would it not be 
a most solemn manifestation, if, in the living crowd, 
we could discern those to whom the earth, the ground, 
has but one thing more to supply ] 

6. Much of human decay not visible. — The most 
decayed and faded portion of the living world is 
much less in sight than the fresh and vigorous. Think 
how many infirm, sick, debilitated, languishing, and 
almost dying persons there are, that are rarely or 
never out in public view — not met in our streets, 
roads, or places of resort — not in our religious as- 
semblies ! And then *' out of sight, out of mind," in 
a great degree ! Thus we look at the living world 
so as not to read the destiny written on every fore- 
head, and in this thoughtlessness are the more apt to 
forget our own. 

7. Unperceived succession of human generations. — 



202 Foster's thoughts. 

Human beings are continually going and coming, so 
that, though all die, man in his vast assemblage is al- 
ways here The order of the world is that men 

be withdrawn one by one, one here and one there, 
leaving the mighty mass, to general appearance, still 
entire — except in the case of vast and desolating ca- 
lamities. Thus we see nothing parallel to the gen- 
eral autumnal fading of the leaf. More like the ever- 
greens, which lose their leaves by individuals, and 
still maintain their living foliage — to the thoughtless 
spectator, the human race is presented under such a 
fallacious appearance as if it always lived. 

8. Uncertain continuance of life, — Life is expendi- 
ture : we have it but as continually losing it ; we have 
no use of it, but as continually wasting it. Suppose 
a man confined in some fortress, under the doom to 
stay there till his death ; and suppose there is there 
for his use a dark reservoir of water, to which it is 
certain none can ever be added. He knows, sup- 
pose, that the quantity is not very great; he can not 
penetrate to ascertain how much, but it may be very 
little. He has drawn from it by means of a fountain 
a good while already, and draws from it every day ; 
but how would he feel each time of drawing, and 
each time of thinking of it % not as if he had a peren- 
nial spring to go to ; not, ** I have a reservoir — I may 
be at ease." No ! but, " I had water yesterday ; I 
have water to-day; but my having had it, and my 
having it to-day, is the very cause that I shall not have 
it on some day that is approaching. At the same 
time I am compelled to this fatal expenditure !" So 
of our mortal, transient life ! 

9. The records of time are emphatically the history 
of death. — A whole review of the world, from this 
hour to the age of Adam, is but the vision of an infi- 
nite multitude of dying men. During the more quiet 
intervals, we perceive individuals falling into the dust, 
through all classes and all lands. Then come floods 



FRAILTY OF LIFE. 203 

and conflagi'ations, famines, and pestilence, and earth- 
quakes, and battles, which leave the most crowded 
and social scenes silent. The human race resemble 
the withered foliage of a wide forest ; while the air 
is calm, we perceive single leaves scattering here and 
there from the branches; but sometimes a tempest 
or a whirlwind precipitates thousands in a moment. 
It is a moderate computation which supposes a hun- 
dred thousand millions to have died since the exit of 
righteous Abel. Oh, it is true that ruin hath entered 
the creation of God ! that sin has made a breach in 
that innocence which fenced man round with immor- 
tality ! and even now the great spoiler is ravaging 
the world. As mankind have still sunk into the dark 
gulf of the past, history has given buoyancy to the 
most wonderful of their achievements and characters, 
and caused them to float down the stream of time to 
our own age. , . . What an affecting scene is a dying 
world ! Who is that destroying angel whom the Eter- 
nal has employed to sacrifice all our devoted race 1 
Advancing onward over the whole field of time, he 
hath smitten the successive crowds of our hosts with 
death ; and to ms he now approaches nigh. Some of 
our friends have trembled, and sickened, and expired, 
at the signals of his coming ; already we hear the 
thunder of his wings : soon his eye of fire will throw 
mortal fainting on all our companies ; his prodigious 
form will to us blot out the sun, and his sword sweep 
us all from the earth ; '* for the living know that they 
shall die." 

10. Memorials of advancing life. — It is not the be- 
ing aware of any physical or mental decline, but a 
remoteness in my retrospects ; the disappearance by 
death of so many of my elders, and even coevals ; 
the dispersion and changed condition of my early 
companions ; the alteration of a great part of the 
economy of my feelings ; the five feet ten inches alti- 
tude of persons whom I recollect as infants when I 



204 poster's thoughts. 

first reached that altitude ; and the very sound and 
appearance of the woyA. forty (to the number meant 
in which word I shall soon have a very particular re- 
lation) — these, and I suppose many more things, con- 
cur to make me feel how far I have gone already 
past the meridian hour of the short day of life. 

11. The aged — presages of old age. — Like the last 
few faded leaves, lingering and fluttering on a tree. 

Let them think what they feel to be gone — 

freshness of life ; vernal prime ; overflowing spirits ; 
elastic, bounding vigor; insuppressible activity; quick, 
ever-varying emotion ; delightful unfolding of the fac- 
ulties; the sense of more and more power of both 
body and spirit; the prospect as if life were entire 
before them ; and all overspread with brightness and 
fair colors ! . . . . There are circumstances that will 
not let them forget wJiereabouts tliey are in life ; feel- 
ings of positive infirmity ; diminished power of exer- 
tion ; gray hairs ; failure of sight ; besetting pains ; 
apprehensive caution against harm and inconveni- 
ence ; often what are called nervous affections ; slight 
injuries to the body far less easily repaired. 

12. Old age the safer period of Ufe. — And, consid- 
ering our age, and now established principles, views, 
and habits, it is no slight satisfaction to hope that we 
are now passed safe beyond the most unsteady, haz- 
ardous, and tempting periods, feelings, and scenes of 
life. Not that we can ever be safe but by Divine 
preservation ; but still it is no trifling advantage that 
some of the most pernicious influences of a bad world 
have necessarily, as to us, lost very much of their 
power. 

13. Insensibility to mortal destiny. — How comes 
it to be possible that men can see the partakers of 
their own nature and destiny withering and falling 
from the tree of life, and calmly look at them in their 
fall in the dust with hardly one pointed reflection 
turned on themselves ! As if the careless spectator 



FRAILTY OF LIFE. 205 

should say, "Well, they must go! there is no help for 
them ! unfortunate lot ! but it is nothing to me ex- 
cept to pity them for a moment, and be glad that I 
am under no such disastrous decree !" So little is 
there of ominous sympathy felt, while men see neigh- 
bors, acquaintances, friends, relatives, one by one 
fading, falling, and vanishing. 

14. Retrospect of the year. — We have been con- 
suming our years ; we have very nearly expended 
another ; think how nearly it is gone from us ! Yon- 
der as it were behind is the long lapse of it. As if 
we stood by a stream bearing various things upon it 
away. We can look back to its successive times and 
incidents, as what we icere present to. But Omnipo- 
tence can not take us back to meet again its com- 
mencement, or any portion or circumstance of it. 
We are present now to one of its latest diminutive 
portions, which Omnipotence can not withhold from 
following the departed. We are occupying it, breath- 
ing in it, thinking in it, for nearly the last time; little 
more of it is remaining than time enough for bidding 
it a solemn and reflective fareicell ! A few hours 
more, and the year can never be of the smallest fur- 
ther use to us, except in the way of reflection 

It is like a seed-time gone, and the tract of ground 
sunk under the sea. It is as a treasure-house burnt; 
but of which, nevertheless, we may find some little 
of the gold melted into a different form in the ashes. 
Let us then, in parting with the year, try to gain from 
it the last and only thing it can give us — some profit 
by means of our thoughts reaching back to what is 
gone. 

15. Misimprovement of time. — Our year has been 
parallel to that of those persons who have made the 
noblest use of it. We can represent to ourselves the 
course of the most devoted servant of God through 
this past year, in various states, and modes of em- 
ployment. Now we had just the same hours, days, 

18 



206 poster's thoughts. 

and months, as they. Let the comparison be made. 
Why was the day, the week, the month, of less value 
in our hands than in theirs % .Do we stand for ever 
dissociated from them upon this year ? How desira- 
ble that we may be associated with them during the 
next, if God prolong our life ! . . . . And, at the very 
times when we were heedlessly letting it pass by, 
throwing it away — there were, here and there, men 
passionately imploring a day — an hour — a few mo- 
ments — more. And at those same seasons some 
men, here and there, were most diligently and earn- 
estly redeeming and improving the very moments we 
lost ! the identical moments — for we had the same, 
and of the same lentjth and value. Some of them 
are, in heaven itself, now enjoying the consequences. 
Where do ice promise ourselves the consequences 
of those portions of time lost] 

16. Precursors of approaching death timvelcome. — 
How unwelcome are these shortening days ! The 
precursory intimations of winter even before the sum- 
mer itself is gone, and how almost frightfully rapid 
the vicissitudes of the seasons, telling us of time, the 
consumption of life, the approximation to its end. 
That end ; that end ! And there is an hour decreed 
for the final one. It ivill be here — it will be ]oast. 
And then — that other life ! that other world ! Let us 
pray more earnestly than ever, that the first hour 
after the last may open upon us in celestial light. 

17. Death the termination of a journey . — The idea 
of his moving rapidly on, in vigorous life to a certain 
spot, to one precise point, and on coming exactly 
thither, being, as in a moment, in another world, 
renders the mystery of death still more intense. And 
there being nothing to excite the slightest anticipa- 
tion, when he set out on the journey, when he came 
within a mile — within a few steps of the fatal point! 
How true the saying, that "in the midst of life we 
are in death !" 



FUTURE LIFE. 207 

18. Mystery of the change of death. — In looking 
on the deserted countenance, through which mind 
and thought had so recently, but, as it were, a few 
minutes before, emanated, t felt what profound mys- 
tery there was in the change. What is it that is gone 1 
What is it now ? 

19. What the activity of the future state. — Very 
many human beings have within our knowledge left 
this scene of action. We can recall them to thought 
individually ; we observed their actions. How have 
they been employed since 1 The triflers how 1 The 
active enemies of God how 1 The servants of Christ 
how "? We can not very formally represent to our- 
selves how ; but it is interesting to look into that 
solemn obscurity— to think of it. Think of all that 
have done all the works under the sun "ever since 
that luminary began to shine on this world — now in 
action in some other regions ! Think of all those 
whose actions we have beheld and judged— those 
recently departed — our own personal friends ! Have 
they not a scene of amazing novelty and change; 
while yet there is a relation, a connecting quality 
between their actions before and now The dif- 
ference and comparison would dilate our faculties to 
the intensest wonder. 

20. Revelations of eternity. — There is eternity; 
you have lived perhaps thirty years ; you are by no 
means entitled to expect so much more life ; you at 
the utmost will very soon, t-ery soon die ! What fol- 
lows ?^ Eternity! a boundless region ; inextinguish- 
able life; myriads of mighty and strange spirits; 
vision of God; glories, horrors. 

21. The future partially revealed or wisely veiled. 
—We here " know but in part." So " in part," that 
just the part, the portion which we wish to attain, is 
divided off from our reach. It seems as if a dissever- 
ing principle, or a dark veil, fell down exactly at the 
point where v/e think we are near upon the knowl- 



208 Foster's thoughts. 

edge we are pursuing. We reach the essential ques- 
tion of the inquiry; let that be surpassed and we 
should arrive at the truth — exult in the knowledge. 
But just there we are stopped by something insuper- 
able ; and there we stand, like prisoners looking at 

their impregnable wall In this life men are 

placed in this world's relations, a system of relations 
corresponding to our inhabiting a gross, frail, mortal 
body, with all its wants and circumstances — and that 
we have to perform all the various business of this 
world. That there are innumerable thoughts, cares, 
employments, belonging inseparably to this our state ; 
and that therefore there must not be such a mani- 
festation of the future state as would confound, stop, 
and break uj^, this system. 

22. Future loorld veiled. — " How gloomy that range 
of lamps looks (at some distance along the border of 
a common), how dark it is all around them." Yes, 
like the lights that are disclosed to us from the other 
world, which simply tell us, that there, in the solemn 
distance, where they burn encircled with darkness, 
that world is, but shed no light on the region. 

23. Mystery of man^s r el aMons to tlie future — Ms 
uncertain progression. — Many of these questions are 
such as, being pursued, soon lead the thinking spirit 
to the brink, as it were, of a vast unfathomable gulf. 
It is arrested, and becomes powerless at the limit ; 
there it stands, looking on a dark immensity ; the 
little light of intellect and knowledge which it brings 
or kindles, can dart no ray into the mysterious ob- 
scurity. Sometimes there seems to be seen, at some 
unmeasured distance, a glimmering spot of light, but 
it makes nothing- around it visible, and itself vanishes. 

But often it is one unbounded, unvaried, starless, 
midnight darkness — without one luminous point 
through infinite space. To this obscurity we are 
brought in pursuing any one of very many questions 
of mere speculation and curiosity. But there is one 



FUTURE LIFE. 209 

question which combines with the interest of specu- 
lation and curiosity an interest incomparably greater, 
nearer, more affecting, more solemn. It is the sim- 
ple question — " What shall we be ?" How soon 
it is spoken ! but who shall reply 1 Think, how pro- 
foundly this question, this mystery, concerns us — 
and in comparison with this, what are to us all ques- 
tions of all sciences 1 What to us all researches into 
the constitution and laws of material nature 1 What 
— all investigations into the history of past ages 1 
What to us — the future career of events in the prog- 
ress of states and empires ] What to us — what shall 
become of this globe itself, or all the mundane sys- 
tem ? What WE shall be, we ourselves, is the matter 

of surpassing and infinite interest I that am 

now, that am here, that am thus ; what shall I be, 
and where, and how, when this vast system of na- 
ture shall have passed away? What — after ages 
more than there are leaves or blades of grass on the 
whole surface of the globe or atoms in its enormous 
mass shall have expired ? What — after another such 
stupendous lapse of duration shall be gone ] Those 
terms of amazing remoteness will arrive ; yes those 
periods the very thought of which engulfs our facul- 
ties will be come and will he past/ .... To ascertain, 
for instance, the yet unknown course of a great river, 
has excited the invincible ardor of some of the most 
enterprising of mortals — who, in long succession, 
have dared all perils, and sacrificed their lives. To 
force a passage among unknown seas and coasts, in 
the most frowning and dreadful regions and climates ; 
to penetrate to the discovery of the hidden laws, and 
powers, and relations of nature ; to ascertain the 
laws, the courses, the magnitudes, the distances, of 
the heavenly bodies ; something — is the truth, in all 
these subjects of ambitious and intent inquisition. 
But what if all this could be known ? If we could 
have the entire structure of this globe disclosed, to 
18* 



SIO Foster's thoughts. 

its very centre, to our sight or intelligence ; if through 
some miraculous intervention of Divine power, w^e 
could have a vision of the whole economy of one of 
the remotest stars ; or if our intelligence could pass 
down, under a prophetic illumination, to the ends of 
time in this world, beholding, in continued series, the 
grand course of the world's affairs and events ; what 
would any or all of these things be, in comparison 
with the mighty prospect of our own eternal exist- 
ence ? with what is to be revealed upon us, and to be 
realized in our very being, and experience, through 
everlasting duration 1 

24. Irrepi'essihle longing to hnoio the future. — But 
oh ! my dear friend, whither is it that you are going? 
Where is it that you will be a few short weeks or 
days hence. I have affecting cause to think and to 
wonder concerning that unseen world ; to desire, 
were it permitted to mortals, one glimpse of that 
mysterious economy, to ask innumerable questions to 
which there is no answer — what is the manner of 
existence — of employment — of society — of remem- 
brance — of anticipation of all the surrounding reve- 
lations to our departed friends % How striking to 
think, that she, so long and so recently with me here, 
so beloved, but now so totally withdrawn and absent, 
that she experimentally knows all that I am in vain 
inquiring ! 

2^. Prohlems of this life solved in the next. — One 
object of life should be to accumulate a great number 
of grand questions to be asked and resolved in eter 
nity. We now ask the sage, the genius, the philoso- 
pher, the divine — none can tell; but we will open our 
series to other respondents — we will ask angels — God. 

26. Pagan views of a future state dim and inef- 
ficacious. — The shadowy notion of a future state 
which hovered about the minds of the pagans, a vague 
apparition which alternately came and vanished, was 
at once too fantastic and too little of a serious belief 



FUTURE LIFE. 211 

to be of any avail to preserve the rectitude, or to 
maintain the authoiity, of the distinction between 
rigrht and wronsf. It was not defined enouo-h, or no- 

O O • • • 

ble enough, or convincing enough, or of judicial ap- 
plication enough, either to assist the efficacy of such 
moral principles as might be supposed to be innate 
in a rational creature, and competent for prescribing 
to it some A'irtues useful and necessary to it even if 
its present brief existence were all ; or to enjoin ef- 
fectually those higher virtues to which there can be 
no adequate inducement but in the expectation of a 
future life. 

Imagine, if you can, the withdrawment of this doc- 
trine from the faith of those who have a solemn per- 
suasion of it as a part of revealed truth. Suppose 
the grand idea either wholly obliterated, or faded 
into a dubious trace of what it had been, or trans- 
muted into a poetic dream of classic or barbarian 
mythology — and how many moral principles would 
be found to have vanished with it, would necessarily 
break up the government over his conscience. 

27. The offences of some elegant ivriters, in con- 
founding the Christian^ s with the pagan's triumph 
over death. — What is the Christian belief of that poet 
worth, who would not, on reflection, feel self-re- 
proach for the affecting scene, which has, for awhile, 
made each of his readers rather wish to die with 
Socrates, or with Cato, than with St. John ? What 
would have been thought of the pupil of an apostle, 
who, after hearing his master describe the spirit of a 
Christian's departure from the world, in language 
which he believed to be of conclusive authority, and 
which asserted or clearly implied that this alone was 
greatness in death, should have taken the first occa- 
sion to expatiate Avith enthusiasm on the closing scene 
of a philosopher, or on the exit of a stern hero, that, 
acknowledging in the visible world no object for 
either confidence or fear, departed with the aspect 



212 Foster's thoughts. 

of a being who was going to summon his gods to 
judgment for the misfortunes of his life 'i And how 
will these careless men of genius give their account 
to the Judge of the world, for having virtually taught 
many aspiring minds that, notwithstanding his first 
coming was to conquer for man the king of terrors, 
there needs no recollection of him, in order to look 
toward death with noble defiance or sublime desire 'I 

28. Vagzie notions of heave?i. — The martial va- 
grants of Scandinavia glowed with the vivid anticipa- 
tions of Valhalla ; the savages of the western conti- 
nent had their animating visions of the " land of 
souls;" the modern Christian barbarians of England, 
who also expect to live after death, do not know what 
they mean by their phrase of "going to heaven." 

29. Grand delivei'ance of death. — How obvious is 
it, too, that there must be a change, like that accom- 
plished through death, in order to the enlargement 
of our faculties, to the extension of the sphere of their 
never-remitting, never-tiring exertion, to their enjoy- 
ing a vivid perception of truth, in a continually ex- 
panding manifestation of it, and to their entering, 
sensibly and intimately, into happier and more ex- 
alted society than any that can exist on earth. Some- 
times, while you are thinking of that world unseen 
which is now an object of your faith, but may soon 
be disclosed to you in its wondrous reality, it will 
occur to you, how many most interesting inquiries 
to which there is here no reply, will, to you, be 
changed into knowledge ! how many things will be 
displayed to your clear and delighted apprehension, 
which the most powerful intellect, while yet confined 
in the body, conjectures and inquiries after in vain. 
What a mighty scene of knowledge and felicity there 
is, which it is necessary to die in order to enter into ! 
Yes, to be fully, sublimely, unchangeably happy, it 
is necessary to die. For the soul to be redeemed to 
liberty and purity— to rise from darkness to the great 



FUTURE LIFE. 213 

vision of truth — to be resumed into the presence of 
its Divine Original — to enter into the communion of 

o 

the Mediator of the new testament and of the spirits 
of the just, it is necessary to die ! 

30. Death the sovereign remedy for all infirmities. 
— It often occurs to meditative thought, what an in- 
stant cure it will be for all the disorders at once, when 
the frame itself is laid down, and the immortal inhab- 
tant, abandoning it, will care no more about it; will 
seem to say, " Take all thy diseases with thee now 
into the dust ; they and thou concern me no more." 

31. State of the righteous iii heaven, to he desired. 
— The consequence would be that all things affecting 
the soul, in the way of attracting it, would affect it 
riorht. Nothinof would attract it which ouQ-ht not: 
it would be in rejndsion to all evil ; and those things 
which did attract, and justly might, would do so in 
the right degrees and proportion so far, and no fur- 
ther; with so much force, and no more; and with an 
unlimited force that alone which is the supreme good. 
What a glorious condition this ! And this must be 
the state of good men in a future world, else there 
would be temptation, trial, hazard, and the possibility 
of falling How marvellous and how lamenta- 
ble, that the soul can consent to stay in the dust, when 
invited above the stars ; having in its own experience 
the demonstration that this is not its world ; knowing 
that even if it were, the possession will soon cease ; 
and having a glorious revelation and a continual loud 
call from above ! . . . . Happy ! considering that to 
those higher things we are in a constant, permanent 
relation ; whereas our relation to the terrestrial is 
varying and transient. Reflect, how many things 
on the earth we have been in relation to, but are no 
longer, and shall be no more. Happy ! because a 
right state of the affections toward the superior ob- 
jects, is the sole security for our having the greatest 
benefit of those on earth. For that which is the best 



814 Foster's thoughts. 

in the inferior, is exactly that which may contribute 
to the higher; and that will never be found but by 
him who is intent on the higher. Happy ! because 
every step of the progress which we must make in 
leaving the one, is an advance toward a blessed and 
eternal conjunction with the other. Then, that cir- 
cumstance of transcendent happiness, that in the su- 
perior state of good men there will be no contrary 
attractions, no diverse and opposed relations to put 
their choice and their souls in difficulty or peril ! 

32. Future greatness of man. — Futurity is the 
greatness of man, and that hereafter is the grand scene 
for the attainment of the fullness of his existence. 
When depressed and mortified by a conscious little- 
ness of being, yet feeling emotions and inthnations 
which seem to signify that he should not be little, he 
may look to futurity and exclaim, *'I shall be great 
yonder!" When feeling how little belongs to him, 
how diminutive and poor his sphere of possession 
here, he may say, *' The immense futurity is mine !" 
Looking at man, vs^e seem to see a vast collection of 
little beginnings— attempts — failures — like a plan- 
tation on a bleak and blasted heath. And the 
progress in whatever is valuable and noble, whether 
in individuals or communities, is so miserably diffi- 
cult and slow. So that " the perfectibility of man," 
in the sense in which that phrase has been employed, 
stands justly ridiculed as one of the follies of philo- 
sophic I'omance. Then how delightful it is to see 
revelation itself, pronouncing as possible, and pre- 
dicting as to come, something " perfect" in the con- 
dition of man ! 

33. Lofty aspirations for the future life. — I have 
been reading some of Milton's amazing descriptions 
of spirits, of their manner of life, their powers, their 
boundless liberty, and the scenes which they inhabit 
or traverse ; and my wonted enthusiasm kindled high. 
I almost wished for death ; and wondered with great 



FUTURE LIFE. 215 

admiration what that life and what tnose strange re- 
gions really are, into which death will turn the spirit 
free ! I can not wonder, and I can easily pardon, 
that this intense and sublime curiosity has sometimes 
demolished the corporeal prison, by flinging it from 
a precipice, or into the sea. Milton's description of 
Uriel and the Sun revived the idea which I have be- 
fore indulged as an imagination of sublime luxury, 
of committing myself to the liquid element (suppo- 
sing some part of the sun a liquid fire), of rising on 
its swells, flashing amid its surges, darting upward a 
thousand leagues on the spiry point of a flame, and 
then falling again fearless into the fervent ocean. 
Oh, what is it to be dead ; what is it to shoot into the 
expansion, and kindle into the ardors of eternity; 
what is it to associate with res^^lendent angels ! 

34. Sorrows of this coynjjcnsated by the joys of the 
future life. — ^Remember, my friend, what a sublime 
compensation He is able to make you for all these 
troubles, and often read and muse on those promises 
in which he has engaged to make you eternally hap- 
pier for the present pains. Think how completely 
all the griefs of this mortal life will be compensated 
by one age, for instance, of the felicities beyond the 
grave, and then think that one age multiplied ten 
thousand times, is not so much to eternity as one 
grain of sand is to the whole material universe. 
Think what a state it will be to be growing happier 
and happier still as ages pass away, and yet leave 
something still happier to come ! 

35. Contemplation of the departed righteous. — You 
can thus regard her as having passed beyond the very 
last of the pains and sorrows appointed to her exist- 
ence by her Creator, as looking back on them ally 
and having entered on an eternity of unmingled joy ; 
as having completed a short education for a higher 
sphere and a nobler society ; as having attained since 
she was your companion, and by the act of ceasing 



216 poster's thoughts. 

to be so, tlcat in comparison with which the whole 
sublunary world is a trifle ; as having left your abode 
because her presence was required among the blessed 
and exalted servants of the supreme Lord in heaven. 

36. Death the exchange of the earthly for the heav- 
enly treasure. — " Paid the debt of nature." No ; it 
is not paying a debt — it is rather like bringing a note 
to a bank to obtain solid gold in exchange for it. In 
this case you bring this cumbrous body, wliich is noth- 
ing worth, and which you could not wish to retain 
long ; you lay it down, and receive for it from the 
eternal treasures — liberty, victory, knowledge, rap- 
ture. 

37. Premonitions of mortal dissolution welcomed. — 
Indeed, I would regard as something better than en- 
emies, the visitations that give a strong warning of 
the final and not remote beating down and demoli- 
tion of the whole frail tabernacle. A salutary im- 
pression made on the soul, even through a wound of 
the body, is a good greatly more than compensating 
the evil. In the last great account no doubt a vast 
number of happy spirits will have to ascribe that hap- 
piness to the evils inflicted on their bodies, as the im- 
mediate instrumental cause. 

38. Joyous anticipation of the heavenly state. — Let 
us gratefully hail the gleams that come to us from a 
better world, through the gloom of declining age, 
which is beginning to darken before us, and give all 
diligence to the jDreparation for passing the shades 
of death, confident in the all-suflSciency of Him who 
died for us, to emerge into the bright economy and 
the happy society beyond. 

39. The aged believer approaching a future life. — 
An aged Christian is soothed by the assurance that 
his Almighty Friend will not despise the enfeebled 
exertions, nor desert the oppressed and fainting weak- 
ness, of the last stage of his servant's life. When 
advancing into the shade of death itself, he is anima- 



PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 217 

ted by the faith that the great sacrifice has taken the 
malignity of death away ; and that the Divine pres- 
ence will attend the dark steps of this last and lonely 
enterprise, and show the dying traveller and combat- 
ant with evil that even this melancholy gloom is the 
very confine of paradise, the immediate access to the 
region of eternal life. 

40. Regrets of converted old age. — When the sun 
thus breaks out toward the close of his gloomy day, 
and when, in the energy of his new life, he puts forth 
the best efforts of his untaught spirit for a little divine 
knowledge, to be a lamp to him in entering ere long 
the shades of death, with what bitter regret he looks 
back to the period when a number of human beings, 
some perhaps still with him, some now scattered from 
him, and here and there pursuing their separate 
courses in careless ignorance, were growing up un- 
der his roof, within his charge, but in utter estrange- 
ment from all discipline adapted to insure a happier 
sequel ! His distressing reflection is often represent- 
ing to him what they might now have been if they had 
grown up under such discipline. And gladly would 
he lay down his life to redeem for them but some 
inferior share of what the season for imparting to 
them is gone for ever. 

41. Death of the righteous and the wiched contrast- 
ed. — It is w^ell ; but if, sweeping aside the pomp and 
deception of life, we could draw from the last hours 
and death-beds of our ancestors all the illuminations, 
convictions, and uncontrollable emotions, with which 
they have quitted it, what a far more affecting history 
of man should we possess ! Behold all the gloomy 
apartments opening, in which the wicked have died ; 
contemplate first the tiiumph of iniquity, and here 
behold their close ; witness the terrific faith, the too 
late repentance, the prayers suffocated by despair 
and the mortal agonies ! These once they would not 
believe ; they refused to consider them ; they could 

19 



218 Foster's thoughts. 

not allow that the career of crime and pleasure was 
to' end. But now truth, like a blazing star, darts 
over the mind, and but shows the way to that " dark- 
ness visible" which no light can cheer. '' Dying 
wretch !" we say in imagination to each of these, " is 
religion true ? Do you believe in a God, and anoth- 
er life, and a retribution 1" — " Oh yes !" he answers, 
and expires. But "the righteous hath hope in his 
death." Contemplate through the unnumbered saints 
that have died, the soul, the true and inextinguisha- 
ble life of man, charmed away from this globe by ce- 
lestial music, and already respiring the gales of eter- 
nity ! If we could assemble in one view all the ado- 
ring addresses to the Deity, all the declarations of 
faith in Jesus, all the gratulations of conscience, all 
the admonitions and benedictions to weej^ing friends, 
and all the gleams of opening glory, our souls v/ould 
burn with the sentiment which made the wicked Ba- 
laam devout, and exclaim, *' Let me die the death of 
the righteous, and let my last end be like his." These 
revelatipns of death would be the most emphatic com- 
mentary on the revelation of God. 

42. Without God in the world. — " Without G^od in 
the world." Think what a description, and applica- 
ble to individuals without number ! If it had been 
" without friends — without food — without shelter" — 
that would have had a gloomy sound ; but, ^^ without 
God .'" without him ! — that is, in no happy relation 
to him who is the very origin, support, and life, of 
all things ; without him who can make good flow to 
his creatures from an infinity of sources ; without him 
whose favor possessed is the best, the sublimest of 
all delights, all triumphs, all glories ; without him 
who can confer an eternal felicity ; without him, too, 
in a world where the human creature knows there is 
a mighty and continual conspiracy against his welfare. 
What do those, who are under so sad a destitution, 
value and seek instead 1 But what will anything or 



PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 219 

all things be worth in his absence '?.... We need 
not dwell on that condition of humanity in which 
there is no notion of Deity at all — the condition of 
some outcast savage tribes. The spirit with nothing 
to go out to, beyond its clay walls, but the immedi- 
ately surrounding elements, and other creatures of 
the same order. , . . That relation constitutes the law 
of good and evil, and fixes an awful sanction on the 
difference. In an endless series of things — that there 
is such a Being, und that I belong to him, is a reason 
for one thing, and against another. The thought of 
him is to be associated with all these things, and its 
influence to be predominant. " Thus — and thus — I 
think — and wish — and will — and act — because there 
is a God." Now for me to forget or disregard all 
this, is to remove myself, as far as I can, from God ; 
to cause, as far as I am able, that to me there is no 

God To be insensible to the Divine character 

as lawgiver, rightful authority, and judge, is truly to 
be " without God in the world." For thus every ac- 
tion of the soul and the life assumes that he is absent, 
or not exists. . . . Without him as a friend, approver, 
and patron; no devout, ennobling converse with him ; 
no conscious reception of ♦delightful impressions, sa- 
cred influences, suggested sentiments ; no pouring 
out of the soul in fervent desires for his illuminations, 
his compassions, his forgiveness, his transforming op- 
erations ; no earaest penitential, hopeful pleading in 
the name of the Great Intercessor ; no solemn, affec- 
tionate dedication of the whole being Consider 

the loneliness of a human soul in this destitution. All 
other beings are necessarily (shall we express it so 1) 
extraneous to the soul ; they may communicate with 
it, but they are still separate and without it; an in- 
termediate vacancy keeps them for ever asunder, so 
that the soul must be, in a sense, in an insupportable 
and eternal solitude — that is, as to all creatures. 
43. I*resu7nption of delay for Divine influences.—^ 



\ 



220 poster's thoughts. 

When a mariner suffers a long, dead calm on the 
ocean, how oft he looks up at the sails, and says, 
** Oh, if the winds would but blow !" Now there 
may be persons who will aver that the thoughtful 
man can do no more respecting his motives than the 
mariner respecting the winds. We must think dif- 
ferently. . . . Or shall he wait quietly to see whether 
the good motives will grow stronger of themselves? 
— as we may look at a stream, and know that when 
the rain comes, it will be swollen to a toiTent ; as we 
may let trees alone, and see how they will enlarge. 
Alas ! have his good motives grown v/hile he lias thus 
waited ] 

44. Approving the good, hut pursuing the ivrong.- — 
Astonishing fact, that all that mankind acknowledge 
the greatest, they care about the least — as first, on 
the summit of all greatness the Deity ! 'Tis acknowl- 
edged he reigns over all, is present always here, pre- 
vails in each atom and each star, observes us as an 
awful Judge, claims infinite regard, is supremely good 
— what then 1 why, think nothing at all about him ! 

45. Indifference to offers of salvation. — Here, now, 
the inestimable gifts of religion are carried round to 
four hundred people (the ^congregation) : if it could 
be made visible, how many take them, and what part 
of them, and how much, and how many let them pass 
by, and ivhy ? 

46. TJnprofited by the gospel. — Hearing an excel- 
lent sermon — most monstrous truth, that this sermon, 
composed of perhaps two hundred just thoughts, will, 
by the evening hour, be forgotten by all the hearers 
except — how many? Yet every just thought of re- 
ligion requires its counterpart in feeling and action, 
or does it not 1 

47. Indecision is decision. — Let us beware of the 
delusive feeling as if indifference, however prolonged, 
had still nothing in it of the nature of a decision ; as 
if it were but remaining in a kind of suspension and 



PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 2S1 

protracted equipoise. Are we insensible that an addi- 
tional weight is falling all the while on the other side, 
by mere time itself which is going, particle by parti- 
cle, to the wrong ; by irreligious habit, which is grow- 
ing stronger and stronger ; and by negation, refusal, 
all the while, of what is claimed by the higher inter- 
est ! We decide against that which we refuse to 
adopt : so that prolonged indifference is decision so 
far ; and i7idifference to the end will hut he decision 
completed ! 

48. Without God. — Dreadful want, if, by some 
vast enlargement of thought, you could comprehend 
the whole measure and depth of disaster contained 
in this exclusion (an exclusion under which, to the 
view of a serious mind, the resources and magnifi- 
cence of the creation would sink into a mass of dust 
and ashes, and all the causes of joy and hope into 
disgust and despair), you would feel a distressing 
emotion at each recital of a life in which religion had 
no share ; and you would be tempted to wish that 
some spirit from the other world, possessed of elo- 
quence that might threaten to alarm the slumbers of 
the dead, would throw himself in the way of this one 
mortal, and this one more, to protest, in sentences of 
lightning and thunder, against the infatuation that 
can at once acknowledge there is a Grod, and be con- 
tent to forego every connexion with him, but that of 
danger. 

49. Meet death alone. — And it is you, you yourself, 
that bear the oppressive weight. Friends sympa- 
thize ; but are often reminded how far their sympa- 
thy is from an actual identity with the feelings of the 
sufferer. She bears alone the languor, and pain, and 
agitation, of the falling tabernacle. I was most for- 
cibly and pensively struck with this thought in seeing 
you last Tuesday, and still more deeply in reflection 
afterward. I can not express how affectingly the 
idea dwelt on my mind. " How solitary a thing is the 

19* 



222 Foster's thoughts. 

fatal process !" The friends who are habitually near 
her, or who see her at considerable intervals, are 
deeply interested in the suffering of their young friend, 
but they are not as she is — they can not place them- 
selves in perfect community, can not take a real share 
in that which presses on her — can not remove any 
part of it from her. It is her own individual self, 
still, that feels the sinking of nature, that breathes 
with labor, that is forced to painful efforts, by day 
and night, to relieve the vital organs. And it is in 
her own sole person that she is approaching to the 
last act of life. 

50. Danger of j^'i'ocrastiiiation. — How dangerous 
to defer those momentous reformations which con- 
science is solemnly preaching to the heart ! If they 
are neglected, the difficulty and indisposition are in- 
creasing every month. The mind is receding, degree 
after degree, from the warm and hopeful zone ; till, 
at last, it will enter the arctic circle, and become fixed 
in relentless and eternal ice ! 

51. Ter suasion to religious consideration. — Can the 
voice of the kindest human friend, or the voice from 
Heaven itself, express to you a kinder or wiser sen- 
tence, than that you should apply yourself with all 
earnestness to secure the true felicity — the only real 
and substantial felicity on earth, supposing your life 
should be prolonged — the supreme felicity of a bet- 
ter world, if the sovereign Disposer has appointed 
that your life shall be short ] Do not allow your 
thoughts to recoil from the subject as too solemn, 
too gloomy a one. If it were the gloomiest in the 
world, if it were nothing hut gloomy, it is yet ahso- 
lutely 7iecessary to be admitted, and dwelt upon in all 
its importance. What would be gained^ my dear 
John, and oh, what may be lost, by avoiding it, turn- 
ing the thoughts from it, and trying not to look at it ! 
Will the not thinking of it make it cease to be ur- 
gently and infinitely important ? Will the declining 



PERSUASIVES TO A RELIGIOUS LIFE. 223 

to think of it secure the safety of the momentous in- 
terests involved in it 1 

52. Presu7nj9tion qfexpecti7ig more efficacious means 
of salvation. — But have no such visitations come to 
you already % What was their effect % Are you to 
be so much more sensible to the impressions of the 
next % or do you wish them to be tenfold more se- 
vere % If you can wish so, the interest for which you 
wish so must be most urgent. But if it he so urgent, 
why neglected now ? Consider, besides, that the next 
severe visitation may be the last of life — may be a 
fatal disaster — may be a mortal illness ! Or would 
you wait for old age ? What ! because it is confes- 
sedly a great Tnoral miracle for a man careless till old 
age, to be awakened then ! Or will a man profane a 
Christian doctrine, and say, the Spirit of God alone 
can be efficacious, and he must quietly wait for that 1 
This is saying, in eifect, that he will make a trial with 
Omnipotence, and resist as long as he can ! How 
can he anticipate any other than du destructive energy 
from that Spirit upon him, while he is trifling with, 
and frustrating truth, conviction, warnings, and emo- 
tions of conscience ! while he is repelling all these 
minor operations of that Spirit, instead of earnestly 
praying for the greater ! 



224 Foster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER X. 

PLACES, NATIONS, MEN, AND BOOKS. 

1. Bahylon. — There is no modern Babylon. It is 
secluded and alone in its desolation ; clear of all in- 
terference with its one character as monumental of 
ancient time and existence. If the contemplative 
spectator could sojourn there alone and with a sense 
of safety, his mind would be taken out of the actual 
world, and carried away to the period of Babylon's 
magnificence, its multitudes, its triumphs, and the Di- 
vine denunciations of its catastrophe. 

2. Egypt. — Egypt has monuments of antiquity 
surpassing all others on the globe. History can not 
tell when the most stupendous of them were con- 
structed; and it would be no improbable prophecy 
that they are destined to remain to the end of time. 
Those enormous constructions, assuming to rank with 
nature's ancient works on the planet, and raised, as 
if to defy the powers of man and the elements and 
time to demolish them, by a generation that retired 
into the impenetrable darkness of antiquity when 
their work was done, stand on the surface in solemn 
relation to the subterraneous mansions of death. All 
the vestiges bear an aspect intensely and unalterably 
grave. There is inscribed on them a language which 
tells the inquirer that its import is not for him or the 
men of his times. Pei'sons that lived thousands of 
years since remain in substance and form, death ever- 
lastingly embodied, as if to emblem to us the vast 
chasm, and the non-existence of relation, between 
their race and ours. A shade of mystery rests on 



NATIONS. 225 

the whole economy to which all these objects be- 
longed. 

3. Illustrious names. — Sesostris, Semiramis, Ninus, 
&c. These mighty names remain now only as small 
points, emerging a little above that ocean under which 
all their actions are buried. We can just descry, by 
the dying glimmer of ancient history, that that ocean 
is of hlood ! 

4. FrencJi and English. — Met a number of men 
one after another. My urbanity was not up to the 
point of saying " Good morning," till I had passed 
the last of them, who had nothing to attract civility 
more than the others, except his being the last. If 
a Frenchman and an Englishman were shown a dozen 
persons, and under the necessity of choosing one of 
them to talk an hour with, the Frenchman would 
choose the first in the row, and the Englishman the 
last. 

5. IrisJi. — It will be the utmost want of candor, 
we think, to deny that they are equal to any nation 
on the earth, in point of both physical and intellectual 
capability. A liberal system of government, and a 
high state of mental cultivation, would make them 
the Athenians of the British empire. By what mys- 
tery of iniquity, or infatuation of policy, has it come 
to pass, that they have been doomed to unalterable 
ignorance, poverty, and misery, and reminded one 
age after another of their dependence on a protestant 
power, sometimes by disdainful neglect, and some- 
times by the infliction of plagues. 

6. State of Ireland. — There is that most appalling 
state of Ireland. I have no degree of confidence that 
the ministry have even the ivill to adopt the bold, 
and radical, and comprehensive measures which alone 
could avail there. How obvious is the necessity for 
some imperious enactment, to compel that base, de- 
testable landed interest, to take the burden of the 
poor, instead of driving them out to famish, beg, or 



226 Foster's thoughts. 

rob, and murder, on the highway; or throwing them 
by tens of thousands on our coast, to devour the means 
of support to our own population. It would be a 
measure which would first astound, but speedily en- 
rage, the whole selfishly base propiietary of Ireland. 
I have no hope that the ministry have the resolution 
for so mighty a stroke : and then the Irish church. 
The plain sense of the thing is, that about two thirds, 
or rather four fifths of it, ought to be cut down at 
once, and that proportion of the property applied to 
national uses. But the very notion of such a thing 

would be enough to consign to one of the wards 

in St. Luke's. And what would say, if Lord 

Grey dared even to whisper such a thing to him 1 
And yet, unless some such thing be done, it is as cleai' 
as noon-day, that Ireland will continue a horrid scene 
of distraction and misery ; growing, month by month, 
more ferociously barbarous, and to be kept down by 
nothing but the terror and occasional exploits of an 
immense standing army, at the cost, too, of this our 
own tax-consuming country. 

7, Addison: deficiency of his writings in religious 
sentiment. — Addison's style is not sufficiently close 
and firm for the use of a philosopher, and as to the 
exquisite shades of his colors, they can perhaps never 

be successfully imitated The very ample scope 

of the spectator gave a fair opportunity for a serious 
vsniter to introduce, excepting pure science, a little 
of every subject connected with the condition and 
happiness of men. How did it happen that the stu- 
pendous circumstance of the redemption by the Mes- 
siah, of which the importance is commensurate with 
the whole interests of man, with the value of his im- 
mortal spirit, with the government of his Creator in 
this world, and with the happiness of eternity, should 
not have been a few times, in the long course of that 
work, fully and solemnly exhibited % Why should 
not a few (?f the most peculiar of the doctrines com- 



MEN AND BOOKS. 227 

prehended in the subject have been clothed with the 
fascinating elegance of Addison, from whose pen 
many persons would have received an occasional 
evangelical lesson with incomparably more candor 
than from any professed divine 1 

8. Baxter: idea of his life. — But to say nothing 
of the length of time this would take, where can mor- 
tal patience be found to work out such an historical 
analysis ] And indeed, after all, what would be the 
benefit of it? A boundless, endless maze, and wil- 
derness of debatings, projectings, schemings, and 
drearaings, about churches, and their constitution and 
their government ; about arrangements for union, and 
terms of communion ; the numberless polemical no- 
tices which he thought himself called upon to take 
of all the petty and spiteful cavillers of his time ; the 
hasty productions of an over-official zeal to set every- 
body right about every actual or possible thing; the 
attenuated, and infinitely multiplex argumentations, 
in the manner of the schoolmen, about trivial niceties 
in theological doctrine ; and above all, the ever-re- 
newed and fruitless toils to work out a tertium quid 
from the impossible combination of two opposite sys- 
tems of theology ; what, I repeat, would be the use 
of attempting to find or make a biographical road 
through this vast chaos % 

9. Blair : his style. — The sentences appear often 
like a series of little independent propositions, each 
satisfied with its own distinct meaning, and capable of 
being placed in a different part of the train, without 
injury to any mutual connexion, or ultimate purpose, 
of the thoughts. The ideas relate to the subject 
generally, without specifically relating to one another. 
They all, if we may so speak, gravitate to one centre, 

but have no mutual attraction among themselves 

The consequence of this defect is, that the emphasis 
of the sentiment and the crisis or conclusion of the 
argument come nowhere ; since it can not be in any 



228 Foster's thoughts. 

single insulated thought, and there is not mutual de- 
pendence and co-operation enough to produce any 

combined result The volumes might be taken 

more properly than any other modern book that we 
know, as comprising the whole commonplaces of 

imagery He is seldom below a respectable 

mediocrity, but, we are forced to admit, that he very 
rarely rises above it. After reading five or six ser- 
mons, we become assured that we most perfectly 
see the whole compass and reach of his powers, and 
that, if there were twenty volumes, we might read on 
through the whole, M'ithout ever coming to a bold 
conception, or a profound investigation, or a burst 
of genuine enthusiasm. There is not in the train of 
thought a succession of eminences and depressions, 
rising toward sublimity, and descending into famil- 
iarity. 

10, BurTce, as cojnpared with Johnson. — I asserted 
the strength of Burke's mind equal to that of John- 
son's ; Johnson's strength is more conspicuous be- 
cause it is barer. A very accomplished lady said, 
" Johnson's sense seems to me much clearer, much 
more entirely disclosed." — " Madam, it is the differ- 
ence of two walks in a pleasure-ground, both equally 
good, and broad, and extended; but the one lies be- 
fore you plain and distinct, because it is not beset 
with the flowers and lilacs which fringe and embower 
the other. T am inclined to prefer the latter." .... 
Burke's sentences are pointed at the end — instinct 
with pungent sense to the last syllable. They are 
like a charioteer's whip, which not only has a long 
and effective lash, but cracks, and inflicts a still 
smarter sensation at the end. They are like some 
serpents of which I have heard it vulgarly said, their 
life is the fiercest in the tail. 

11, Lord Burleigh. — He held the important sta- 
tion during very nearly the whole reign of Elizabeth j 
and we shall not allow it to constitute any impeach- 



MEN AND BOOKS. 229 

ment of either our loyalty or gallantry, that we have 
wished, while reading the account of his life, that he 
had been the monarch instead of our famous queen. 
It is impossible to say what share of the better part 
of her fame was owing to him, but we are inclined 
to think, that if we could make out an estimate of 
that reign, wanting all the good which resulted from 
just so much wisdom and moderation as Cecil pos- 
sessed beyond any other statesman that could have 
been employed, and including all the evil which no 
other minister would have prevented, we should rifle 
that splendid period of more than half its honors. 

12. Chalmers : faults of style. — No reader can 
be more sensible to its glow and richness of color- 
ing, and its not unfrequent happy combinations of 
words ; but there is no denying that it is guilty of 
a rhetorical march, a sonorous pomp, a " showy same- 
ness ;" a want, therefore, of simplicity and flexibility; 
withal, a perverse and provoking grotesqueness, a 
frequent descent, strikingly incongruous with the 
prevailing elatedness of tone, to the lowest colloquial- 
ism, and altogether an unpardonable license of strange 
phraseology. The number of uncouth, and fantastic, 
and we may fairly say barbarous phrases, that might 
be transcribed, is most unconscionable. Such a style 
needs a strong hand of reform ; and the writer may 
be assured it contains life and soul enouo;-h to endure 
the most unrelentmg process of correction, the most 
compulsory trials to change its form, without hazard 
of extinguishing its spirit. 

13. Lord Chatliain in his speeches did not reason; 
he struck, as by intuition, directly on the results of 
reasoning ; as a cannon-shot strikes the mark with- 
out your seeing its course through the air as it moves 
toward its object. 

14. Coleridge : his original modes of thought, hut 
obscure style. — In point of theological opinion, he is 
become, indeed has now a number of years been, it 

20 



230 poster's thoughts. 

is said, highly orthodox. He v/ages victorious war 
with the Socinians, if they are not, which I beHeve 
they now generally are, very careful to keep the 
peace in his company. His mind contains an aston- 
ishing mass of all sorts of knowledge, while in his 
power and manner of putting it to use, he displays 
more of what Ave mean by the term genius than any 

mortal I ever saw or ever expected to see The 

eloquent Coleridge sometimes retires into a sublime 
mysticism of thought ; he robes himself in moon- 
light, and moves among images of which we can not 
be assured for a while whether they are substantial 

forms of sense or fantastic visions The cast of 

his diction is so unusual, his trains of thought so 
habitually forsake the ordinary tracts, and therefore 
the whole composition is so liable to appear strange 
and obscure, that it was evident the most elaborate 
care, and a repeated revisal, would be indispensable 
in order to render so original a mode of writing suf- 
ficiently perspicuous to be in any degree popular. 
.... After setting before his readers the theme, the 
one theme apparently, undertaken to be elucidated, 
could not, or would not, proceed in a straight-for- 
ward course of explanation, argument, and appro- 
priate illustration from fancy ; keeping in sight be- 
fore him a certain ultimate object ; and placing marks, 
as it were, of the steps and stages of the progress. 
.... He always carries on his investigation at a 
depth, and sometimes a most profound depth, below 
the uppermost and most accessible stratum ; and is 
philosophically mining among its most recondite prin- 
ciples of the subject, while ordinary intellectual and 
literary workmen, many of them barely informed of 
the very existence of this Spirit of the Deep, are 
pleasing themselves and those they draw around 
them, with forming to pretty shapes or commodious 
uses, the materials of the surface. It may be added, 
with some little departure fpom the consistency of the 



MEN AND BOOKS. 231 

metaphor, that if he endeavors to make hisvoiceheard 
from this region beneath, it is apt to be listened to as 
a sound of dubious import, hke that which fails to 
brinof articulate words from the remote recess of a 
cavern, or the bottom or the deep shaft of a mine. 
However familiar the truths and facts to which his 
mind is directed, it constantly, and as if involuntarily, 
strikes, if we may so speak, into the invisible and the un- 
known of the subject: he is seeking the most retired 
and abstracted form in which any being can be ac- 
knowledged and realized as having an existence, or 
any truth can be put in a proposition. He turns all 
things into their ghosts, and summons us to walk with 
him in this reg-ion of shades — this strangle world of 
disembodied truth and entities. 

15. Curran. — We have long considered this dis- 
tinguished counsellor as possessed of a higher genius 
than any one in his profession within the British em- 
pire. The most obvious difference between these 
two great orators is, that Curi'an is more versatile, 
rising often to sublimity, and often descending to 
pleasantry, and even drollery ; whereas Grattan is 
always grave and austere. They both possess that 
order of intellectual powers, of which the limits can 
not be assigned. No conception could be so brilliant 
or original, that we should confidently pronounce 
that neither of these men could have uttered it. We 
regret to imagine how many admirable thoughts, 
which such men must have expressed in the lapse of 
many years, have been unrecorded, and are lost for 
ever. We think of these with the same feelings, 
with which we have often read of the beautiful or 
sublime occasional phenomena of nature, in past 
times, or remote regions, which amazed and delight- 
ed the beholders, but which we were destined never 
to see. 

16. Miss Edgctvorth : 7noral faults of her writings. 
— Whether our species were intended as an exhibi- 



232 Foster's thoughts. 

tion for the amusement of some superior, invisible, 
and malignant intellig:ences : or were sent here to ex- 
piate the crimes of some pre-existent state; or were 
made for the purpose, as some philosophers will have 
it and phrase it, of developing the faculties of the 
earth, that is to say, managing its vegetable produce, 
extracting the wealth of its mines, and the like ; or 
were merely a contrivance for giving to a certain 
number of atoms the privilege of being, for a few 
years, the constituent particles of warm upright liv- 
ing figures ; whether they are appointed to any future 
state of sentiment or rational existence ; whether, if 
so, it is to be one fixed state, or a series of trans- 
migrations; a higher or lower state than the present; 
a state of retribution, or bearing no relation to moral 
qualities ; whether there be any Supreme Power, 
that jjresides over the succession and condition of the 
race, and will see to their ultimate destination — or, 
in short, whether there be any design, contrivance, 
or intelligent destination in the whole affair, or the 
fact be not rather, that the species, with all its present 
circumstances, and whatever is to become of it here- 
after, is the production and sport of chance — all these 
questions are probably undecided in the mind of our 

ingenious moralist Our frst censure is, then, 

that, setting up for a moral guide, our author does 
not pointedly state to her followers, that as it is but 
a very short stage she can pretend to conduct them, 
they had need — {/"they suspect they shall be obliged 
to go further — to be looking out, even in the very 
beginning of this short stage in which she accom- 
panies them, for other guides to undertake for their 
safety in the remoter region. She presents herself 
with the air and tone of a person who would sneer 
or spurn at the apprehensive insinuated inquiry, 
whether any change or addition of guides might 
eventually become necessary. 

But, secondly, our author's moral system — on the 



MEN AND BOOKS. 233 

hypothesis of the truth, or possible truth, of revelation 
— is not only infinitely deficient, as being calculated 
to subserve the interests of the human creatures only 
.to so very short a distance, while yet it carefully 
keeps out of sight all that may be beyond ; it is also 
— still on the same hypothesis — perniciously errone- 
ous as far as it goes. For it teaches virtue on prin- 
ciples on w^hich virtue itself will not be approved by 
the Supreme Governor; and it avowedly encourao-es 
some dispositions, and directly or by implication tol- 
erates others, which in the judgment of that Govern- 
or are absolutely vicious. Pride, honor, generous 
impulse, calculation of temporal advantage and cus- 
tom of the country, are convened along with we know 
not how many other grave authorities, as the com- 
ponents of Miss Edgeworth's moral government — the 
Amphictyons of her legislative assembly. 

17. Fox — Slavery. — For ourselves, we think we 
never heard any man who dismissed us from the ar- 
gument on a debated topic with such a feelino- of 
satisfied and final conviction, or such a competence 
to tell why we were convinced. This last abomina- 
tion, which had gradually lost, even on the basest 
part of the nation, that hold which it had for a while 
maintained by a delusive' notion of policy, and was 
fast sinking under the hatred of all that could pretend 
to humanity or decency, was destined ultimately to 
fall by his hand, at a period so nearly contemporary 
with the end of his career, as to give the remembrance 
of his death somewhat of a similar advantage of as- 
sociation to that, by which the death of the Hebrew 
champion is always recollected in connexion witli the 
fall of Dagon's temple. 

18. Andrew Fuller. — It appears to us one of the 
most obvious characteristics of Mr. FuUei's mind, that 
he was but little sensible of the mystery of any subject, 
or of the difficulties arising in the view of its deep 
and remote relations — or if we may use the fashionable 
20* 



234 POSTER*S THOUGHTS. 

term, bearings. To a certain extent, and that un- 
questionably a respectable one, he apprehended and 
reasoned with admirable clearness and force ; and 
he could not, or would not, surmise that any thing of 
importance in the rationale of the subject extended 
beyond that compass : he made therefore his propo- 
sitions, his deductions, his conclusions, quite in the 
tone of a complacent self-assurance of being perfectly 
master of the subject : while in fact the subject 
might involve wider and remoter considerations, not 
indeed easily reducible to the plain tangible predica- 
ments of his rough, confined logic, but essential to a 
comprehensive speculation, and very jDossibly, of a 
nature to throw great dubiousness on the judgment 
which he had so decidedly formed, and positively 
pronounced, on a too contracted view of the subject. 
.... In closing this note, we do not think it requisite 
to use many words in avowal of our high estimate 
of the intellect and the general energy of mind of the 
distinguished and lamented divine : who, indeed, has 
any other estimate ? 

19. Grattan. — These passages tend to confirm the 
general idea entertained of Mr. Grattan's eloquence, 
as distinguished by fire, sublimity, and an immense 
reach of thought. . . . His eloquence must, in its ear- 
liest stage of public display, have evinced itself as the 
flame and impetus of mighty genius. The man would 
infallibly be recognised as of the race of the intellec- 
tual Incas, the children of the sun. 

20. Robert Hall. — I was two or three times in 
Hall's company, and heard him preach once ; I am 
any one's rival in admiring him. In some remark- 
able manner, everything about him, all he does or 
says, is instinct with potver. Jupiter seems to em- 
anate in his attitude, gesture, look, and tone of voice. 
Even a common sentence, when he utters one, seems 
to tell how much more he can do. His intellect is 
peculiarly potential, and his imagination robes, with- 



MEN AND BOOKS. 235 

out obscuring, the colossal form of his mind. His 
mind seems of an order fit with respect to its intel- 
lectual powers to go directly among a superior rank 
of intelligences in some other world, with very little 

requisite addition of force " That memory," he 

said, " will never vanish from the minds of those who 
have heard his preaching, and frequently his conver- 
sation, during the five years that he has been resident 
here. As a preacher his like or equal will come no 
more." — " The chasm he has left can never be filled. 
The thing to be deplored is, that he did not fill a 
space which he was beyond all men qualified to oc- 
cupy in our religious literature. It is with deep re- 
gret one thinks what an inestimable possession for 
our more cultivated, and our rising intelligent young 
people, would have been some six or ten volumes of 
his sermons. 

21. Harris: his style. — If I might venture any 
hint on a lower key, it would perhaps be — a tenden- 
cy to difFuseness, or call it amplification, exuberance. 
The writer luxuriates in his opulence, sometimes di- 
luting a little the eflfect which a little more brevity 
and compression might have sooner and more sim- 
ply produced. Not that if I were asked to note 
any parts or passages better omitted, 1 should know 
where to point ; it is all to the 2:)urpose ; only I may 
fancy that a somewhat less multifarious assemblage 
of ideas would converge more pointedly to that 
purpose. 

22, Howard: philanthropy his master passion. — 
The energy of his determination was so great, that if, 
instead of being habitual, it had been shown only for 
a short time on particular occasions, it would have 
appeared a vehement impetuosity ; but by being un- 
intermitted, it had an equability of manner which 
scarcely appeared to exceed the tone of a calm con- 
stancy, it was so totally the reverse of anything like 
turbulence or agitation. It was the calmness of an 



236 Foster's thoughts. 

intensity kept uniform by the nature of the human 
mind forbidding it to be more, and by the character 
of the individual forbidding it to be less. The habit- 
ual passion of his mind was a measure of feeling al- 
most equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms 
of common minds : as a great river, in its customary 
state, is equal to a small or moderate one when 
swollen to a torrent. 

The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, 
and commencing them in action, was the same. I 
wonder what must have been the amount of that 
bribe, in emolument, or pleasure, that would have 
detained him a week inactive after their final adjust- 
ment. The law which carries water down a decliv- 
ity, was not more unconquerable and invariable than 
the determination of his feelings toward the main ob- 
ject. The importance of this object — held his facul- 
ties in a state of excitement which was too rigid to be 

affected by lighter interests His attention was 

so strongly and tenaciously fixed on his object, that 
even at the greatest distance, as the Egyptian pyra- 
mids to travellers, it appeared to him with a lumin- 
ous distinctness as if it had been nigh, and beguiled 
the toilsome length of labor and enterprise by which 
he was to reach it. It was so conspicuous before 
him, that not a step deviated from the direction, and 
every movement and every day was an approxima- 
tion. 

23. Home Toohe. — His courage, which was of the 
coolest and firmest kind, shrunk from no hazard ; his 
resources of argument and declamation were inex- 
haustible ; his personal applications had every diver- 
sity of address and persuasion. . . . Probably no man 
ever did, on the strength of what he possessed in his 
mere person, and in the destitution of all advantages 
of birth, wealth, station, or connexions, maintain, 
with such perfect and easy uniformity, so challenging 
and peremptory a manner toward great and pretend- 



MEN AND BOOKS. 237 

ing folks of all sorts He had a constitutional 

courage hardly ever surpassed, a perfect command 
of his temper, all the warlike furniture and efficiency 
of prompt and extreme acuteness, satiric wit in all its 
kinds and degrees, from gay banter to the most deadly 
mordacity — and all this sustained by inexhaustible 
knowledge, and indefinitely reinforced, as his life ad- 
vanced, by victorious exertion in many trying situa- 
tions Toward the conclusion of his life, he made 

calm and frequent references to his death, but not a 
word is here recorded expressive of anticipations be- 
yond it. The unavoidable inference from the whole 
of these melancholy memorials is, that he reckoned 

on the impunity of eternal sleep A thoughtful, 

religious reader will accompany him with a senti- 
ment of deep melancholy, to behold so keen, and 
strong, and perverted a spirit, triumphant in its 
own delusions, fearlessly passing into the unknown 
world. 

24. Johnso7i : elevated moral tone of Jiis turitings. 
— Johnson is to be ranked among the greatest of 
moral philosophers, is less at variance with the prin- 
ciples which appear to be displayed in the New Tes- 
tament, than ' almost any other distinguished writer 
of either of these classes. Bnt few of his specula- 
tions, comparatively, tend to beguile the leader and 
admirer into that spirit which, on turning to the in- 
structions of Jesus Christ and his apostles, would feel 
estrangement or disgust ; and he has more explicit 
and solemn references to the grand purpose of hu- 
man life, to a future judgment, and to eternity, than 
almost any other of our elegant moralists has had the 

piety or the courage to make No writer ever 

more completely exposed and blasted the folly and 
vanity of the greatest number of human pursuits. 
The visage of Medusa, could not have darted a more 
fatal glance against the tribe of gay triflers, the com- 
petitors of ambition, the proud possessors of wealth. 



238 Foster's thoughts. 

or the men who consume their Hfe in useless specu- 
lations. 

25. Thomas Wore : his distinguished and hla7nelcss 
character. — A statesman and courtier who was per- 
fectly free from all ambition, from the beginning of 
his career to the end ; who was brought into office 
and power by little less than compulsion ; who met 
general flattery and admiration with a calm indiffer- 
ence, and an invariable perception of their vanity ; 
who amid the caresses of a monarch, longed to be 
with his children ; who was the most brilliant and vi- 
vacious man in every society he entered into, and yet 
was more fond of retirement even than other states- 
men were anxious for public glare ; who displayed a 
real and cordial hilarity on descending from official 
eminence to privacy and comparative poverty ; who 
made all other concerns secondary to devotion ; and 
who, with the softest temper and mildest manners, 
had an inflexibility of principle which never at any 
moment knew how to hesitate between a sacrifice of 
conscience and of life. The mind rests on this char- 
acter with a fascination which most rarely seizes it 

in passing over the whole surface of history 

After enduring with unalterable patience and cheer- 
fulness the severities of a year's imprisonment in the 
Tower, he was brought to trial, condemned with the 
unhesitating haste which always distinguishes the 
creatures employed by a tyrant to effect his revenge 
by some mockery of law, and with the same haste 
consigned to execution. Imagination can not repre- 
sent a scene more aff*ectinQf than the interview of 
More with his favorite daughter, nor a character of 
more elevation, or even more novelty, than that most 
singular vivacity with which, in the hour of death, he 
crowned the calm fortitude which he had maintained 
through the whole of the last melancholy year of his 
life. Thus one of the noblest beings in the whole 
world was made a victim to the malice of a remorse- 



MEN AND BOOKS. 239 

less crowned savage, whom it is the infamy of the 
age and nation to have suffered to reign or to live. 

26. Pope : religious character of his writings. — 
No reader can admire more than I the discriminate 
thought, the finished execution, and the galaxy of 
poetical felicities, by which Pope's writings are dis- 
tinguished. But I can not refuse to perceive that 
almost every allusion in his lighter works to the 
names, the facts, and the topics, that peculiarly be- 
long to the religion of Christ, is in a style and spirit 
of profane banter; and that, in most of his graver 
ones, where he meant to be dignified, he took the ut- 
most care to divest his thoughts of all the mean vul- 
garity of Christian associations. " Off, ye profane !" 
mig-ht seem to have been his address to all evanijeli- 
cal ideas, when he began his " Essay on IMan ;" and 
they were obedient, and fled ; for if you detach the 
detail and illustrations, so as to lay bare the outline 
and general principles of the work, it will stand con- 
fessed an elaborate attempt to redeem the whole the- 
ory of the condition and interests of men, both in life 
and death, from all the explanations imposed on it by 
an unphilosophical revelation from Heaven. And in 
the happy riddance of this despised though celestial 
light, it exhibits a sort of moonlight vision, of thin, 
impalpable abstractions, at which a speculatist may 
gaze, with a dubious wonder whether they are reali- 
ties or phantoms ; but which a practical man will in 
vain try to seize and turn to account, and v/hich an 
evangelical man will disdain to accept in substitution 
for those applicable and affecting forms of truth with 
which his religion has made him conversant. 

27. Shakspere had perceptions of every kind ; he 
could think every way. His mind might be com- 
pared to that monster the prophet saw in his vision, 
which had eyes all over. 

28. Jeremy Taylor. — From the little I have yet 
read, I am strongly inclined to think this said Jeremy 



240 Foster's thoughts. 

is the most cojiipletely eloquent writer in our lan- 
guage. There is a most manly and graceful ease and 
freedom in his composition, while a strong intellect is 
working logically through every paragraph, while all 
manner of beautiful images continually fall in as by 
felicitous accident. 

29. Formidable extent of literature almost discour- 
ages enthusiastic pursuit. Men of ordinary literary 
hardihood look over the dusty and solemn ranks of 
learned works in a great public library as an invin- 
cible tei'ra, incognita ; they gaze on the lettered lati- 
tude and altitude as they would on the inaccessible 
shore of some great island bounded on all sides with 
a rocky precipice. 

30. Understanding the true basis of mental excel- 
lence and sound literature. — Every thinker, writer, 
and speaker, ought to be apprized that understanding 
is the basis of all mental excellence, and that none of 
the faculties projecting beyond this basis can be either 
firm or graceful. A mind may have great dignity and 
power, whose basis of judgment, to carry on the fig- 
ure, is broader than the other faculties that form the 
superstructure : thus a man whose memory is less 
than his understanding, and his imagination less than 
his memory, and his wit none at all, may be an ex- 
tremely respectable, able man — as a pyramid is suffi- 
ciently graceful and infinitely strong ; but not so a 
man whose memory or fancy is the widest faculty, 
and then his judgment more confined. Not but that a 
man may have a powerful understanding while he has 
a still more powerful imagination ; but he would be a 
much superior man to what he is now, if his under- 
standing could be extended to the dimensions of his 
fancy, and his fancy reduced to the dimensions of his 
present understanding — the faculties thus changing 
places. In eloquence, and even in poetry, which 
seems so much the lawful province of imagination, 
should imagination be ever so warm and redundant;, 



LITERATURE. 241 

yet unless a sound, discriminating judgment likewise 
appear, it is not true poetry ; no more than it would 
be painting if a man took the colors and brush of a 
painter, and stained the paper or canvass with mere 
patches of color. I can thus exhibit colors as well as 
he, but I can not produce his forms, to which his col- 
ors are quite secondary. Images are to sense what 
colors are to design. The productions of intellect 
and fancy combined are to those of good intellect 
alone, what a picture is to a drawing : each must 
have correct form, proportions, light and shade, &c. ; 
with these alone the drawing may be pleasing and 
stnking — at least it will do ; the picture having both 
these recommendations, and the richness of colors in 
addition, is much more beautiful and like reality — 
but the drawing is preferable to a square mile of 
mere colors. 

3 1 . Effect of reading a transcendent dramatic work, 
— I never was so fiercely carried off by Pegasus be- 
fore ; the fellow neighed as he ascended. 

32. Commonplace thoughts can not arrest attention. 
— Many things may descend from the sky of truth 
without deeply striking and interesting men ; as from 
the sky of clouds, rain, snow*, &c., may descend with- 
out exciting ardent attention : it must be large hail- 
stones, the sound of thunder, torrent-rain, and the 
lightning-flash ; analogous to these must be the ideas 
and propositions which strike men's minds. 

33. hiijjortance of consistency in fictitious lOriting. 
— One important rule belongs to the composition of 
a fiction, which I suppose the writers of fiction sel- 
dom think of, viz., never to fabricate or introduce a 
character to whom greater talents or wisdom is at- 
tributed than the author himself possesses ; if he does, 
how shall this character be sustained ] By what means 
should my own fictitious personage think or talk bet- 
ter than myself? The author may indeed describe 
his hero, and say that his Edward, or his Henry, or 

21 



242 Foster's thoughts. 

his Francis, is distinguished by genius, acuteness, 
profundity and comprehension of intellect, originality 
and pathos of sentiment, magical fancy, and every- 
thing else; this is all very soon done. But if this 
Henry, or Edward, or Clement, or whatever else it 
is, is to talk before us, then, unless the author him- 
self has all these high qualities of mind, he can not, 
like a ventriloquist, make them speak in the person 
of his hero. There will thus be a miserable discrep- 
ancy between what his hero was at his introduction 
described to be, and what he proves himself to be 
when he opens his mouth. We may easily imagine, 
then, how qualified the greatest number of novel- 
writers are for devising thought, speech, and action, 
for heroes, sages, philosoj)hers, geniuses, wits, &c. ! 
Yet this is what they all can do ! 

34. Conversational disquisition on novels. — I have 
often maintained that fiction may be much more 
instructive than real history. I think so still; but 
viewing the vast rout of novels as they are, I do 
think they do incalculable mischief. I wish we could, 
collect them all together, and make one vast fire of 
them ; I should exult to see the smoke of them ascend 
like that of Sodom and Gomorrah : the judgment 
would be as just." 

35. Great deficiency of what may he called conclu- 
sive writing and spcaliing. — How seldom we feel at 
the end of the paragraph or discourse that something 
is settled and. done ! It lets our habit of thinking and 
feeling j'm,s^ he as it ivas. It rather carries on a paral- 
lel to the line of the mind, at a peaceful distance, than 
fires down a tangent to smite across it. We are not 
compelled to say with ourselves emphatically, " Yes, 
it is so ! it must be so ; that is decided to all eterni- 
ty !" The subject in question is still left afloat, and 
you find in your mind no new impulse to action, and 
no clearer view of the end at which your action should 
aim. I want the speaker or writer ever and anon, as 



LITERATURE. 243 

he ends a series of paragraphs, to settle some point 
irrevocably with a vigorous knock of persuasive de- 
cision, like an auctioneer, who with a rap of his ham- 
mer says, " There! that's yours; I've done with it; 
now for the next." 

36. Commonplace preachers. — It is strange to ob- 
serve how some men, whose business is thought and 
truth, acquire no enlargement, accession, or novelty 
of ideas, from the course of many years, and a wide 
scope of experience. It might seem as if they had 
slept the last twenty years, and now awaked with ex- 
actly the same intellectual stock which they had be- 
fore they began the nap. 

37. A class of loritings as void of merit as of liter- 
ary faults. — There is another large class of Christian 
books, which bear the marks of learning, correctness, 
and a disciplined understanding ; and by a general 
propriety leave but little to be censured ; but which 
display no invention, no prominence of thought, nor 
living vigor of expression : all is flat and dry as a 
plain of sand. It is perhaps the thousandth iteration 
of commonplaces, the listless attention to which is 
hardly an action of the mind: you seem to under- 
stand it all, and mechanically assent while you are 
thinking of something else. Though the author has 
a lich, immeasurable field of possible varieties of re- 
flection and illustration around him, he seems doomed 
to tread over again the narrow space of ground long 
since trodden to dust, and in all his movements ap- 
pears clothed in sheets of lead. . . . But unfortunate- 
ly, they forgot that eloquence resides essentially in 
the thought, and that no words can make that eloquent 
which will not be so in the plainest that could fully 
express the sense. 

3S. Remark on heing requested to translate Bu. 
ckanarCs incomparahle Latin Ode to May. — It would 
be like the attempt to paint a sun-setting cloud-scene. 

39. Comvionplace truth is of no use, as it makes 



244 Foster's thoughts. 

no impression ; it is no more instruction than wind is 
music. The truth must take a particular bearing, as 
the wind must pass through tubes, to be anything 
worth. 

40. The greatest excellence of writing. — Of all the 
kinds of writing and discourse, that appears to me in- 
comparably the best which is distinguished by grand 
masses and prominent bulks ; which stand out in mag- 
nitude from the tame groundwork, and impel the 
mind by a succession of separate, strong impulses, 
rather than a continuity of equable sentiment. One 
has read and heard very sensible discourses, which 
resembled a plain, handsome brick wall : all looks 
very well, 'tis regularly built, high, &c., but 'tis all 
alike; it is flat; you go on and on, and notice no one 
part more than another; each individual brick is noth- 
ing, and you pass along, and soon forget utterly the 
wall itself. Give me, on the contrary, a style of wri- 
ting and discourse that shall resemble a wall that has 
the striking irregularity of pilasters, pictures, niches, 
and statues. 

41. Inferior religious hooks. — It is true enough 
th-at on every other subject, on which a multitude of 
books have been written, there must have been many 
which in a literary sense were bad. But I can not 
help thinking that the number coming under this de- 
scription bear a larger proportion to the excellent 
ones in the religious department than in any other. 
One chief cause of this has been, the mistake by 
which many good men professionally employed in 
religion have deemed their respectable mental com- 
petence to the office of public speaking the proof of 
an equal competence to a work, which is subjected 
to much severer literary and intellectual laws. 

42. The common of literature. — How large a por- 
tion of the material that books are made of, is desti- 
tute of any peculiar distinction ! " It has," as Pope 
said of women, just "no character at all." An ac- 



LITERATURE. 245 

cumulation of sentences and pages of vulgar tru- 
isms and candle-light sense, which any one was com- 
petent to write, and which no one is interested in 
reading, or cares to remember, or could remember 
if he cared. This is the common of literature — of 
space wide enough, of indifferent production, and 
open to all. The pages of some authors, on the con- 
trary, give one the idea of enclosed gardens and 
orchards, and one says — " Ha ! that is the man's 
own." 

43. The class of books that should he read. — A man 
of ability, for the chief of his reading, should select 
such works as he feels beyond his own power to have 
produced. What can other books do for him but 
waste his time and augment his vanity ? 

44. Waste of time in reading inferior hooks. — Why 
should a man, except for some special reason, read 
a very inferior book, at the very time that he might 
be reading one of the highest order ? 

45. Ancient metaphysics. — The only attraction of 
abstract speculations is in their truth ; and therefore 
when the persuasion of their truth is gone, all their 
influence is extinct: That which could please the 
imagination or interest the affections, might in a con- 
siderable degree continue to please and interest them, 
though convicted of fallacy. But that which is too 
subtle to please the imagination, loses all its power 
when it is rejected by the judgment. And this is the 
predicament to which time has reduced the meta- 
physics of the old philosophers. The captivation of 
their systems seems almost as far withdrawn from us 
as the songs of their sirens, or the enchantments of 
Medea. 

46. The moral effect of the Iliad upon the world. — 
After considering the effect which has been produced 
by the Iliad of Homer, I am compelled to regard it 
with the same sentiment as I should a knife of beau- 
tiful workmanship, which had been the instrument 

21* 



246 Foster's thoughts. 

used in murdering an innocent family. Recollect, as 
one instance, its influence on Alexander, and through 
him on the world. 

47. Philosophy of the demoralizing influence oj" lit- 
erature. — No one, I suppose, will deny that both the 
characters and the sentiments, which are the favor- 
ites of the poet and the historian, become the favor- 
ites also of the admiring reader; for this would be to 
deny the excellence of the poetry and eloquence. It 
is the high test and proof of genius that a writer can 
render his subject interesting to his readers, not 
merely in a general way, but in the very same man- 
ner that it interests himself. If the great works of 
antiquity had not this power, they would long since 
have ceased to charm. We could not long tolerate 
what revolted, while it was designed to please, our 
moral feelings. But if their characters and senti- 
ments really do thus fascinate the heart, how far will 
this influence be coincident with the spirit and with 
the design of Christianity ? .... Let this susceptible 
youth, after having mingled and burned in imagina- 
tion among heroes, whose valor and anger flame like 
Vesuvius, who wade in blood, trample on dying foes, 
and hurl defiance against earth and Heaven; let him 
be led into the company of Jesus Christ and his dis- 
ciples, as displayed by the evangelists, with whose 
narrative, I will suppose, he is but slightly acquaint- 
ed before. What must he, what can he do with his 
feelinos in this transition ] He will find himself flunsf 
as far as "from the centre to the utmost pole;" and 
one of these two opposite exhibitions of character 

will inevitably excite his aversion He will be 

incessantly called ujDon to worship revenge, the real 
divinity of the Iliad, in comparison with which the 
Thunderer of Olympus is but a despicable pretender 
to power. He will be taught that the most glorious 
and enviable life is that to which the greatest num- 
ber of lives are made a sacrifice ; and that it is noble 



LITERATURE. 247 

in a hero to prefer even a short life attended by this 
fehcity, to a long one which should permit a longer 
life also to others. 

49. Antagonism to Christianity inprofessedly Chris- 
tian literattire. — I fear it is incontrovertible, that far 
the greatest part of what is termed polite literature, 
by familiarity with which taste is refined, and the 
moral sentiments are in a great measure formed, is 
hostile to the religion of Christ ; partly by introdu- 
cing insensibly a certain order of opinions unconso- 
nant, or at least not identical, with the principles of 
that religion ; and still more by training the feelings 

to a habit alien from its spirit This is just as if 

an eloquent pagan priest had been allowed constantly 
to accompany our Lord in his ministry, and had di- 
vided with him the attention and interest of his disci- 
ples, counteracting, of course, as far as his efforts 
were successful, the doctrine and spirit of the Teacher 
from heaven. 

50 . Kesponsihility of elegant writers. — One can not 
close such a review of our fine writers without mel- 
ancholy reflections. That cause which will raise all 
its zealous friends to a sublime eminence on the last 
and most solemn day the world has to behold, and 
will make them great for ever, presented its claims 
full in sight of each of these authors in his time. The 
very lowest of those claims could not be less than a 
conscientious solicitude to beware of everything that 
could in any point injure the sacred cause. This 
claim has been slighted by so many as have lent at- 
traction to an order of moral sentiments greatly dis- 
cordant with its principles. And so many are gone 
into eternity under the charge of having employed 
their genius, as the magicians their enchantments 
against Moses, to counteract the Savior of the world. 

51. Amenahility of literature to a standard. — Ev- 
ery work ought to have so far a specific object, that 
we can form some notion what materials are properly 



248 poster's thoughts. 

or improperly introduced, and within what compass 
the whole should be contained. Those works that 
disdain to recognise any standard of prescription 
according to which books are appointed to be made, 
may fairly be regarded as outlaws of literature, which 
every prowling reviewer has a right to fall upon 
wherever he finds them. 

52. Naturalness of characters no excuse for their 
depravity. — It is no justification to say that such in- 
stances have been known, and therefore such repre- 
sentations but imitate reality ; for if the laws of criti- 
cism do not enjoin, in works of genius, a careful 
adaptation of all examples and sentiments to the 
purest moral purpose, as a far higher duty than the 
study of resemblance to the actual world, the laws of 
piety most certainly do. Let the men who have so 
much literary conscience about this verisimilitude, 
content themselves with the office of mere historians, 
and then they may relate without guilt, if the relation 
be simple and unvarnished, all the facts and speeches 
of depraved greatness within the memory of the 
world. But when they choose the higher office of 
inventing and combining, they are accountable for all 
the consequences. They create a new person, and, 
in sending him into society, they can choose whether 
his example shall tend to improve or to pervert the 
minds that will be compelled to admire him. 

53. Elegant writers often confound Christian and 
pagan doctrines. — You would have supposed that 
these writers had heard of one Jesus Christ, as they 
had heard of one Confucius, as a teacher whose in- 
structions are admitted to contain many excellent 
things, and to whose system a liberal mind will occa- 
sionally advert, well pleased to see China, Greece, 
and Judea, as well as England, producing their phi- 
losophers, of various degrees and modes of illumina- 
tion, for the honor of their respective countries and 



LITERATURE. 249 

periods, and for the concurrent promotion of human 
intelligence. 

5 4 . The goodrn en of elegan t wr iters less tli an Chris- 
tians. — One thing extremely obvious to remark is, that 
the good man, the man of virtue, who is of necessity 
constantly presented to viev^ in the volumes of these 
writers, is not a Christian. His character could have 
been formed, though the Christian revelation had nev- 
er been opened on the earth, or though all the copies 
of the New Testament had perished ages since ; and 
it might have appeared admirable, bilt not peculiar. 

^b. Elegant writers restrict their views too much to 
this life. — Their schemes of happiness, though formed 
for beings at once immortal and departing, include 
little which avowedly relates to that world to which 
they are removing, nor reach beyond the period at 
which they will properly but begin to live. They 
endeavor to raise the groves of an earthly paradise, 
to shade from sight that vista which opens to the dis- 
tance of eternity. 

5Q. Defective views of the future state in popular 
writers. — The pleaders of them seem more concerned 
to convey the dying man in peace and silence out of 
the world, than to conduct him to the celestial felicity. 
Let us but see him embarked on his unknown voyage 
•in fair weather, and we are not accountable for what 
he may meet, or where he may be carried, when he 
is gone out of sight. They seldom present a lively 
view of the distant happiness, especially in any of 
those images in which the Christian revelation has 
intimated its nature. In which of these books, and 
by which of the real or fictitious characters whose 
last hours and thoughts they sometimes display, will 
you find, in terms or in spirit, the apostolic sentiments 
adopted — " To depart and be with Christ is far bet- 
ter" — " Willing rather to be absent from the body, 
and present with the Lord ?" 

57. Unfaithfulness of elegant authors to the Chris- 



250 Foster's thoughts. 

tian standard. — No one can be so absurd as to rep- 
resent the notions which pervade the works of polite 
literature as totally, and at all points, opposite to the 
principles of Christianity ; what I am asserting is, 
that in some important points they are substantially 
and essentially different, and that in others they dis- 
own the Christian modification. 

58. Fine writers i^resent fictitious or corrupting in- 
cidents and aspects of society. — If it be said that such 
works stand on the same ground, except as to the re- 
ality or accuracy of the facts, with an eloquent history, 
which simply exhibits the actions and characters, I 
deny the assertion. The actions and characters are 
presented in a manner which prevents their just im- 
pression, and empowers them to make an opposite 
one. A transforming magic of genius displays a num- 
ber of atrocious savages in a hideous slaughter-house 
of men, as demigods in a temple of glory. No doubt 
an eloquent history might be so wiitten as to give the 
same aspect to such men, and such operations; but 
that history would deserve to be committed to the 
flames. A liistory that should present a perfect dis- 
play of human misery and slaughter, would incite no 
one, that had not attained the last possibility of de- 
pravation, to imitate the principal actoi's. It would 
give the same feeling as the sight of a field of dead 
and dying men after a battle is over. 

59. Discrepancy hcticeen pagan and CJwistian vir- 
tue overlooked hy fine tvriters. — And why do I deem 
the admiration of this noble display of moral excel- 
lence pernicious to these reflective minds, in relation 
to the religion of Christ 1 For the simplest possible 
reason: because the principles of that excellence are 
not identical with the principles of this religion; as I 
believe every serious and self-observant man, who 
has been attentive to them both, will have verified in 
his own experience. He has felt the animation which 
pervaded his soul, in musing on the virtues, the sen- 



LITERATURE. 251 

timents, and the great actions, of these dignified men, 
suddenly expiring, when he has attempted to prolong 
or transfer it to the virtues, sentiments, and actions, 
of the apostles of Jesus Christ. He finds this am- 
phibious devotion impossible. 

60. Pagan distinctions in moraJs conjovnded ivitJi 
the Christian by elegant authors. — It might have been 
presumed that all principles which the new dispensa- 
tion rendered obsolete, or declared or implied to be 
wrong, should no more be regarded as belonging to 
the system of principles to be henceforward received 
and taught, than dead bodies in their graves belong 
to the race of living men. To retain or recall them 
would, therefore, be as off'ensive to the judgment, as 
to take up these bodies and place them in the paths 
of men would be offensive to the senses ; and as ab- 
surd as the practice of the ancient Egyptians, who 
carried their embalmed ancestors to their festivals. 
It might have been supposed that whatever Christi- 
anity had actually substituted, abolished, or supplied, 
would therefore be practically regarded by these be- 
lievei's of it as substituted, abolished, or supplied ; 
and that they would, in all their writings, be at least 
as careful of their fidelity in this great article, as a 
man who adopts the Newtonian philosophy would 
be certain to exclude from his scientific discourse all 
ideas that seriously implied the Ptolemaic or Tycho- 
nic system to be true. 

61 . Profane divorcement of literature from religion 
hy j)ointlar tvriters. — After a comparatively small num- 
ber of names and books are excepted, what are called 
the British classics, with the addition of very many 
works of great literary merit that have not quite at- 
tained that rank, present an immense vacancy of 
Christianized sentiment. The authors do not ex- 
hibit the signs of having ever deeply studied Christi- 
anity, or of retaining any discriminative and serious 
impression of it. Whatever has strongly occupied a 



252 Foster's thoughts. 

man's attention, affected his feelings, and filled his 
mind with ideas, will even unintentionally show it- 
self in the train and cast of his discourse : these wri- 
ters do not in this manner betray that their faculties 
have been occupied and interested by the special 
views unfolded in the evangelic dispensation. Of 
their being solemnly conversant with these views, you 
discover no notices analogous, for instance, to those 
which appear in the writing or discourse of a man, 
who has lately passed some time amid the wonders 
of Rome or Egypt, and who shows you, by almost 
unconscious allusions and images occurring in his 
language even on other subjects, how profoundly he 
has been interested in contemplating tiiumphal arch- 
es, temples, pyramids, and tombs. Their minds are 
not naturalized, if I may so speak, to the images and 
scenery of the kingdom of Christ, or to that kind of 
light which the gospel throws on all objects. They 
are somewhat like the inhabitants of those towns 
within the vast salt-mines of Poland, who, beholding 
every object in their region by the light of lamps and 
candles only, have in their conversation no expres- 
sions describing things in such aspects as never ap- 
pear but under the lights of heaven. 

62. True connexion of religion and literature over- 
looked hy popular authors. — Christian principles have 
something in their nature which has a relation with 
something in the nature of almost all serious subjects. 
Their being extended to those subjects, therefore, is 
not an arbitrary and forced application of them ; it is 
merely permitting their cognizance and interfusion in 
whatever is essentially of a common nature with them. 
It must be evident in a moment that the most general 
doctrines of Christianity, such as those of a future 
judgment, and immortality, if believed to be true, 
have a direct relation with everything that can be 
comprehended within the widest range of moral spec- 
ulation and sentiment. It will also be found that the 



LITERATURE. 253 

more particular doctrines, such as those of the moral 
depravity of our nature, an atonement made by the 
sacrifice of Christ, the interference of a special Di- 
vine influence in renewing the human mind, and ed- 
ucating it for a future state, together with all the 
inferences, conditions, and motives, resulting from 
them, can not be admitted and religiously regarded, 
without combining themselves, in numberless instan- 
ces, with a man's ideas on moral subjects. I mean, 
that it is in their very nature thus to interfere and 
find out a relation with these ideas, even if there were 
no Divine requirement that they should. That writer 
must, therefore, have retired beyond the limits of an 
immense field of important and most interesting spec- 
ulations, must indeed have retired beyond the limits 
of all the speculation most important to man, who 
can say that nothing in the religion of Christ bears, 
in any manner, on any part of his subject any more 
than if he were a philosopher of Satan Con- 
sider how small a portion of the serious subjects of 
thought can be detached from all connexion with the 
religion of Christ, without narrowing the scope to 
which he meant it to extend, and repelling its inter- 
vention where he intended it to intervene. The book 
which unfolds it has exaggerated its comprehensive- 
ness, and the first distinguished Christian had a delu- 
sive view of it, if it does not actually claim to mingle 
its principles with the whole system of moral ideas, 
so as to impart to them a specific character : in the 
same manner as the element of fire, interfused through 
the various forms and combinations of other elements, 
produces throughout them, even when latent, a certain 
important modification, which they would instantly 
lose, and therefore lose their perfect condition by its 
exclusion. 

22 



254 Foster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER XL 

PASSION, AFFECTION, SENSIBILITY, AND SENTIMENT. 

1. Conversation on cruelty, and the cruel sports 
particularly among children and very young persons. 
Is not the pleasure of feeling and exhibiting power 
over other things, a principal part of the gratification 
of cruelty] 

2. Poor horse ! to draw both your load and your 
driver: so it is ; those that have power to impose 
burdens, have powder and will to impose their vile 
selves in addition. Kn j^f^ssant, reflections here ; 
how different is this one fact to me and to the horse 
I this moment looked at ; I think — the horse feels ; 
I am turning a sentence, the horse pants in suffering; 
how languid a feeling is that of sympathy ! Nothing 
mortifies me more than that defect of the vitality of 
sympathy, with which I am for ever compelled to tax 
myself. 

3. Figurative use of ludicrous associations depra- 
ving. — It is a great sin against moral taste to mention 
ludicrously, or for ludicrous comparison, circumstan- 
ces in the animal world which are painful or distress- 
ing to the animals that are in them. The simile, 
" Like a toad under a harrow," has been introduced 
in a way to excite a smile at the kind of human dis- 
tress described, and perhaps thathuman distress might 
be truly ludicrous, for many such distresses there are 
among human beings ; but then we should never as- 
sume as a parallel a circumstance of distress in an- 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 255 

Other subject which is serious and real. The suffer- 
ings of the brute creation are to me much more sa- 
cred from ridicule or gayety than those of men, be- 
cause they never spring from fantastic passions and 
follies. 

4. Cruelty of the English, — I stoutly maintained in 
a company lately, that the English are the most bar- 
barous people in the world. I cited a number of 
prominent facts ; among others, that bull-haiting was 
lately defended and sanctioned in the grand talisman 
of the national humanity and virtue — the parliament. 

5. Mrs. '5 passions are like a little whirlwind 

— round and round; moving, active, but still here; 
do not carry hevjorward, away, into superior attain- 
ment. 

6. Curious process of kindling the passion,— fear, 
in one's own breast, by the voluntary imagination of 
approaching ghosts, of the sound of murders, &c., 
&c. I sometimes do this to escape from apathy. 

7. Interesting disquisition on the value of continu- 
ous passion, habitual emotion, and whether this can 
be created, and how long a person so feeling could 
live. Bonaparte can not live long. 

8. Strong imagination of lying awake in a solitary 
room, and a ghost entering and sitting down in the 
room opposite me. What an intense feeling it would 
be while I reciprocated the fixed silent glare. 

9. Some people's sensihility is a mere bundle of 
aversions, and you hear them display and parade it, 
not in recounting the things they are attached to, but 
in telling you how many things and persons they 
" can not bear." 

10. Fine sensibilities are like woodbines, delight- 
ful luxuries of beauty to twine round a solid, upright, 
stem of understanding ; but very poor things, if, un- 
sustained by strength, they are left to creep along the 
ground. 

11. Infinite and incalculable caprices of feeling, — 



256 Foster's thoughts. 

A quarter of an hour since how romantic, how en- 
chanted with the favorite idea, how anticipative of 
pleasure from an expected meeting ! I have ad- 
vanced within two hundred yards of the place : well, 
while I have been looking at some trees and pool of 
water, the current of sentiment is changed, and I 
feel as if I could wish to slink away into deep and 
eternal solitude. 

12. Importance of having a system of exercising 
the affections, friendship, marriage, philanthropy, the- 
opathy. If not in some of these ways exercised, af- 
fections become stunted, soured, self-directed. — Old 
maids. 

13. Captious feelings incident to a devoted affection. 
— My friendship for is attended with a pain- 
ful watchfulness and susceptibility ; my heart suffers 
a feverish alternation of cold and warmth; physical- 
ly and literally sometimes a chill sensation pervades 
my bosom, and moves me at once to be irritated and 

weep Qu. How far a continual state of feeling 

like this would be propitious to happiness and to vir- 
tue % Yet how is a son of fancy and passion to con- 
tent himself with that mere good-liking, which is ex- 
empt from all these pains, because it leaves the most 
elysian powers of the heart to sleep unmolested to 
the end of time ] It seems tolerably evident, that 
such over-vitalized feelings are unfit for this world, 
and yet without them there can be none of that sub- 
limity and ecstasy of the affections, which we deem 
so congenial to the felicities of a superior world. 

14. Sad pleasure in grief. — What is that sentiment 
approaching to a sad pleasure, which a mind of pro- 
found reflection sometimes feels in a far inward in- 
communicable grief, though the fixed expectation 
of calamity, or even guilt, were its cause ? 

15. Triumph over evils in word rather than deed. 
— How thoughtless often is a moralist's or a preach- 
er's enumeration of what a firm or pious mind may 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 257 

bear with patience, or even complacency; as disease, 
pain, reduction of fortune, loss of friends, calumny, 
&c., for he can easily add words ; alas ! how op- 
pressive is the steady anticipation only of any one 
of these evils ! 

16. Hostile feeling mitigated to kindness hy seen 
affiiction. — How every hostile feeling becomes miti- 
gated into something like kindness, when its object, 
perhaps lately proud, assuming, unjust, is now seen 
oppressed into dejection by calamity. The most 
cruel wild beast, or morecnrel man, if seen languish- 
ing in death, and raising toward us a feeble and sup- 
plicating look, would certainly move our pity. How 
is this % perhaps the character is not even supposed 
to be really changed amid the suffering that modifies 
its expression. Do we unconsciously take anything 
like a tender feeling, even for self, as a proof of some 
little goodness, or possibility of goodness ] Is it for 
those beings alone that we feel nothing, who discov- 
er a hard and stupid indifference to self, and every- 
thing besides ? Perhaps any sentient being, the 
worst existent or possible, might be in a situation to 
move and to justify our sympathy. What then shall 
we think of that theology which represents the men 
whom God has made most like himself, as exulting 
for ever and ever in the most dreadful sufferings of 
the larger part of those who have been their fellow- 
inhabitants of this world 1 

17. Despair in suffering. — I am going to wade the 
stream of misery, and I see an inaccessible bank be- 
fore me on the other side ; where I may find it ac- 
cessible I do not yet know ! 

18. Sorrows cleave to the heart. — How much one 
wishes it possible to leave each painful feeling that 
accompanies one in the rock, or the tree, or the tomb 
that one passes ; but no : tenaciously faithful, it is 
found to accompany still ! I am gone on, past fields, 

22* 



258 Foster's thoughts. 

and woods, and towns, and streams, but there is a 
spectre here still following me ! 

19. Elements of interest iii conversation, — How is 
it possible the conversation of ^/^a^ j!?<2ir can be inter- 
esting 1 Surely the great principle of continued in- 
terest in such a connexion can not be to talk always 
in the style of simple, direct personality, but to in- 
troduce personality into the subject; to talk of topics 
so as to involve each other'' s feeling , without perpet- 
ually talking directly at each other. 

20 . Reactive influence of kind and of vindictive acts. 
— Let a man compare with each other, and also bring 
to the abstract scale, the sentiment which follows the 
performance of a kind action and that which follows 
a vindictive triumph ; still more if the good was done 
in return for evil. How much pleasure then will that 
man insure — yes, what a vast share of it ! — whose de- 
liberate system it is, that his every action and speech 
shall be beneficent ! 

2 1 . Undue tax upon attention of friends. — Remem- 
ber in case of illness and confinement, to cause as 
little trouble as possible to attendant friends ; make 
a great and philosophic exertion to avoid this. There 
is good old Mr. B. here, a worthy man, and very 
kind to his family, chiefly daughters, all grown up, 
and most of them married. He has suffered a very 
severe illness, which made it indispensable for some 
person to sit up with him all night. And though he 
is greatly recovered, so as in the opinion of all his 
friends not to need this service now, yet he has no 
wish to dispense with it, nor seems ever to recollect 
how laborious and oppressive it must be ; and will 
not allow other persons, even one of his other daugh- 
ters, to watch with him as substitutes sometimes, to 
relieve the two who have borne the main weight of 
the service, and who, he thinks, can do it better than 
any one else. Strange inconsideration. 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 259 

22. Accurate judgment of the characters of friends. 

Superlative value in connexions of friendship of 

love, of mutual discrimination. I can not love a per- 
son who does not recognise my individual character. 
It is most gratifying, even at the expense of every 
fault being clearly perceived, to see that in my friend's 
mind there is a standard, or scale of degrees, and that 
he exactly perceives which degree on this scale I 
reach to. What nonsense is sometimes inculcated on 
married persons and on children in regard to their 
parents, about being blind to their faults, at the very 
time, forsooth, they'are to cultivate their reason to 
the utmost accuracy, and to apply it fully in all other 
instances! as if, too, this duty of blindness depended 
on the will ! . . . . All strenuous moral speculations, 
all high ideas of perfection, must be pursued at the 
expense of all human characters around us. The 
defects of our friends will strike us, whether we will 
or not, while we study the sublime theory, and strike 
us the more, the more distinctly we understand the 
theory and them. They will often force their aid on 
us in the form of contrast. This can not be helped ; 
the truth and the consequent feelings must take their 
course. 

23. Mutual assistance in the improvement^ of friends. 
— What a stupendous progress in everything estima- 
ble and interesting would seem possible to be made 
by two tenderly associated human beings of sense 
and principle, in the course, say, of twelve or twenty 
years. Yes, most certainly ; for one has been con- 
scious of undergoing a considerable modification from 
associating even a month with some one or two in- 
teresting persons. Only suppose this process carried 
on, and how great in a few years the eifect; and why 
is it absurd to suppose this process still carried on 
through successive time in domestic society ] 

2i° Taste for the suhlime important. — Represent- 
ed strongly to a young lady the importance of a taste 



260 Foster's thoughts. 

for the sublime, as a most powerful ally to all moral, 
all reli"-ious, all dignified plans of happiness. 

25. Inappreciation of ivorks- of genius. — Some la- 
dies, to whose conversation I had been listening, were 
to take away an epic poem to read. " Why should 
you read an epic poem T' I said to myself; "you 
might as well save yourselves the trouble." How 
often I have been struck at observing, that no effect 
at all is produced, by the noblest works of genius, on 
the habits of thought, sentiment, and talk, of the gen- 
erality of readers ; their mental tone becomes no 
deeper, no mellower ; they are not equal to a fiddle, 
which improves by being repeatedly played upon. 
I should not expect one in twenty, of even educated 
readers, so much as to recollect one singularly sub- 
lime, and by far the noblest part, of the poem in ques- 
tion : so little emotion does anything awake, even in 
the moment of reading; if it did, they would not for- 
get it so soon. 

26. Incapability for conversation. — Spent part of 
an hour in company with a handsome young woman 
and a friendly little cat. The young woman was ig- 
norant and unsocial. I felt as if I could more easily 
make society of the cat. I was, however, mortified 
and surprised at this feeling when I noticed it. It 
does, however, seem to be a law of our nature, at 
least of mine, that unless our intercourse with a hu- 
man being can be of a certain order, we had rather 
play awhile with an inferior animal. Similar to this 
is the expedient one has often had recourse to, of 
talking a large quantity of mixed sense and nonsense 
to a little child, to even an insensible infant perhaj^s, 
from finding the toil or the impossibility of holding 
any rational intercourse with the parents. Fortunate- 
ly, in this case the parents are often as much pleased 
as if one were talking to them all the while. 

27. Dancing a loio amusement. — You plead that 
dancing, &c. are things of pleasant sensation. Yes, 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 261 

you are right ; it does not reach sentiment. The line 
that divides the regions of sensation' and sentiment is 
a very important one : is not dignity all on the other 
side of this line, that is, the region of sentiment. 

28. Inappreciation of any exhibitions of mind. — 
They can hear a parson showing av\^ay in powder and 
ruffles — the quack doctor haranguing on diseases and 
pills — the veteran " shouldering his crutch, and telling 
how fields are won" — the barber edging his razor 
with his jests — the young lady giving new interest to 
a tender subject by the remarks which her feelings 
prompt — and the old wench telling a story of wed- 
dings and of witches — all with the same undisturbed 
tranquillity and dulness. Virtue may triumph, or 
wickedness blaspheme ; distress may supplicate and 
weep ; injured innocence may remonstrate ; industry 
may reprove, or gratitude may bless ; the philosopher 
may reason, and the idiot may rave ; what is it all to 
them % The curious and the novel can not seize at- 
tention ; the grand finds no upper story above the 
kitchen-apartments of their minds ; the tender can 
not awaken torpid sensibility ; and the pathetic re- 
bounds a leasfue from their shielded hearts. 

29. Ijiniitless range of moral and metaphysical 
truth. — My efforts to enter into possession of the vast 
world of moral and metaphysical truth, are like those 
of a mouse attempting to gnaw through the door of 
a granary. 

30. Incitements of high example. — How should a 
mind, capable of any intellectual or moral ambition, 
feel at the thought of transcendent examples of talent 
and achievement % Suggested on awaking at a late 
hour, and instantly recollecting — " Now Bonaparte 
has probably been four hours employed this morn- 
ing in thinking of the arrangements of the greatest 
empire on earth, and I ." 

31. Different orders of talent. — The question that 
leads most directly to the true estimate of a man's 



262 poster's thoughts. 

talents (I asked myself this question after having been 
several times in Mr. Hall's company) is this : How 
much of new would prove to be gained to the region 
of truth, by the assemblage of all that his mind has 
contributed? The highest order of talent is certain- 
ly the power of revelation — the power of imparting 
new propositions of important truth : inspiration, 
therefore, while it continued in a given mind, might 
be called the paramount talent. The second order 
of talent is, perhaps, the power of development — the 
power of disclosing the reasons and the proofs of 
principles, and the causes of facts. The third order 
of talents, is, perhaps, the power of application— the 
power of adapting truth to effect. 

32. Connexion of imagination andjudgment. — -Long- 
maintained question in conversation, how far power- 
ful imagination does always, or necessarily, imply 
powerful judgment too. Instances, Burns, Bloom- 
field, &c. 

33. The impress of genius not generally apprecia- 
ted. — The dictates of genius urging elevated princi- 
ples are not admitted or understood by the generality. 
So I remember a man refusing a shilling quite new 
from the mint, every line and point of it distinct and 
brilliant, for **it was an odd kind of shilling, not like 
other shillings," it must therefore be a bad or sus- 
picious one. 

34. Co7nmunication of ideas to a congenial mind. — 
I know the luxury of disclosing ideas to a mind who 
has ideas, of expatiating on some grand interest with 
a person who feels already all its inspiration. It is 
like planting a favorite flower amid a bed of still more 
beautiful flowers, instead of dooming it to droop or 
die among nettles, a fate very similar to that of aspi- 
ring sentiments when attempted to be imparted to 
trivial or degraded minds. 

35. beautiful ideas transient. — Regret that inter- 
esting ideas and feelings are the comets of the mind; 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 263 

they transit off. Qu, What mode of making them 
fixed stars, and thus the mind a firmament always 
resplendent ? 

36. Reluctance to mental exertion. — My mind seems 
for ever to carry about with it five hundred weight 
of earth, or lead, or some other heavy and useless 
material, which denies it all power of continued ex- 
ertion. How much I could regret, that industry and 
all other viitues are not, by the constitution of na- 
ture, as necessary and inevitable as the descent of 
water down a hill, and of all heavy bodies to the 
earth. 

37. An original 'preacher. has one power 

beyond all you preachers I have yet heard — a power 
of massy fragments of originality, like pieces of rock 
tumbling suddenly down, and dashing into a gulf of 
water below. 

38. Qualifications of an orator or poet. — In short, 
no orator or poet can possibly be a better orator or 
poet than he is a thinker. 

39. Nothing new under the su7i. — I compare life to 
a little wilderness, suiTOunded by a high, dead wall. 
Within this space we muse and walk in quest of the 
new and the happy, forgetting the insuperable limit, 
till, with surprise, we find ourselves stopped by the 
dead wall ; we turn away, and muse and walk again, 
till, on another side, we find ourselves close against 
the dead wall. Whichever way we turn — still the 
same. 

40. A fascinating companion amidst fascinating 
scenes. — Sat a little while with a fascinating woman, in 
a room which looked out on a beautiful rural and vernal 
scene, while the rays of the setting sun shone in with 
a mellow softness that can not be described, after 
spreading a very peculiar light over the grass, and 
being partially intercepted by some blooming orchard- 
trees, so as to throw on the walls of this room a most 
magical picture ; every moment moving and changing, 



264 Foster's thoughts. 

and finally melting away. I compared this room in 
this state, contrasted with an ordinary room in an or- 
dinary state, to the interior of a common mind, con- 
trasted with the interior of a mind of genius. Con- 
versation on the feelings and value of genius. Shall 
never forget this hour. 

41. No susceptibility to mental excitation. — How 
many of these minds are there to whom scarcely any 
good can be done ? They have no excitability. You 
are attempting to kindle a fire of stones. You must 
leave them as you find them, in permanent medioc- 
rity. You waste your time if you do not employ it 
on mateiials which you can actually modify, while 
such can be found. I find that most people are made 
only for the common uses of life. 

42. Intellect icitliout sentiment . — They seem to have 
only the bare intellectual stamina of the human mind, 
without the addition of what is to give it life and sen- 
timent. They give one an impression similar to that 
made by the leafless trees which you remember our 
observing in winter, admirable for the distinct exhi- 
bition of their branches and minute ramifications so 
clearly defined on the sky, but destitute of all the 
green, soft luxury of foliage which is requisite to 
make a perfect tiee. And even the affections exist- 
ing in snch minds seem to have a bleak abode, some- 
what like those bare, deserted nests which you have 
often seen in such trees. 

43. Diversity of talents. — Divine wisdom has allot- 
ted various kinds and divisions of ability to human 
minds, and each ought to be content with his own 
when he has ascertained what, and of what dimen- 
sions it really is. Let not a poet be vexed that he 
is not as much adapted to mathematics as to po- 
etry; let not an ingenious mechanic regret that he 
has not the powers of eloquence, sentiment, and fan- 
cy. Let each cultivate to its utmost extent his proper 
talent ; but still remembering that one part of the 



PASSIONS, SUSCEPTIBILITIES, ETC. 265 

mind depends very much on the whole, and that 
therefore every power should receive an attentive 
cultivation, and that various acquisitions are neces- 
sary in order to give full effect to the one in which 
we may excel. To reason well, is most essential to 
all kinds of mental superioiity. The Bible forcibly 
displays this division of forces, under the illustration 
of the human body, 1 Cor. xii. 

44. Perverted genius. — Beings, whom our imagi- 
nation represents as capable (when they possessed 
great external means in addition to the force of their 
minds) of the grandest utility, capable of vindicating 
each good cause which has languished in a world ad- 
verse to all goodness, and capable of intimidating the 
collective vices of a nation or an age — becoming 
themselves the very centres and volcanoes of those 
vices ; and it is melancholy to follow them in serious 
thought, from this region, of which not all the pow- 
ers, and difficulties, and inhabitants together, could 
have subdued their adamantine resolution, to the Su- 
preme Tribunal where that resolution must tremble 
and melt away. 

45. Moral sentiment not necessarily elevated by in- 
vestigations of science. — P made some most in- 
teresting observations on the moral effect of the study 
of natural philosophy, including astronomy. He de- 
nied, as a general effect, the tendency of even this 
last grand science to expand, sublime, or moralize 
the mind. He had talked with the famous Dr. Her- 
schel. It was of course to suppose, a priori, that 
Herschel's studies would alternately intoxicate him 
with revery, almost to delirium, and carry him irre- 
sistibly away toward the throne of the Divine Maj- 
esty. P questioned him on the subject. Her- 

schel told him that these effects took place in his mind 
in but a very small degree ; much less, probably, than 
in the mind of a poet without any science at all. 
Neither a habit of pious feeling, nor any peculiar and 

23 



266 poster's thoughts. 

transcendent emotions of piety, were at all the ne- 
cessary consequence. 

46. Figure of perverted use of memory. 's 

memory is nothing but a row of hooks to hang up 
grudges on. 

47. Characteristic of genius. — One of the strongest 
characteristics of genius is, the power of lighting its 
own fire. 

48. Lnj^ortance of iinagination. — Imagination, al- 
though a faculty of quite subordinate rank to intel- 
lect, is of infinite value for enlarging the field for the 
action of the intellect. It is a conducting and facili- 
tating medium for intellect to expand itself through, 
where it may feel itself in a genial, vital element, in- 
stead of a vacuum. 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 267 



CHAPTER XII. 

OBSERVATIONS UPON NATURE, NATURAL OBJECTS AND 
SCENES ANALOGIES, ETC. 

1. Infinity of creation. — It is but little to say, that 
the material creation is probably of such an extent 
that the greatest of created beings not only have never 
yet been able to survey it at all, but never v^rill to all 
eternity. . . . If the stupendous extension of the works 
of God was intended and adapted to promote, in the 
contemplations of the highest intelligences, an indefi- 
nitely glorious though still incompetent conception 
of the Divine infinity, the ascertaining of the limit, the 
distinct perception of the finiteness, of that manifes- 
tation of power, would tend with a dreadful force to 
repress and annihilate that conception : and it may 
well be imagined that if an exalted, adoring spirit 
could ever in eternity find himself at that limit, the 
perception would inflict inconceivable horror. 

2. Unperceived extent of the universe. — When we 
reflect what kind of creature it is to whose view thus 
much of the universe has been disclosed ; that the 
physical organ of this very perception is of such a 
nature that it might, in consequence of the extinction 
of life, be reduced to dust within a few short days 
after it had admitted rays from the stars ; while, as to 
his mental part, he is, besides his moral debasement, 
at the very bottom of the gradation of probably innu- 
merable millions of intellectual races (certainly at the 
bottom, since a being inferior to man in intellect could 
not be rational) ; when we think of this, it will appear 



268 Foster's thoughts. 

utterly improbable that the portion of the universe 
which such a creature can take knowledge of, should 
be more than a very diminutive tract in the vast ex- 
pansion of existence, 

3. Invisible creation around us. — Let a reflective 
man, when he stands in a garden, or a meadow, or a 
forest, or on the margin of a pool, consider what 
there is within the circuit of a very few feet around 
him, and that, too, exposed to the light, and with no 
veil for concealment from his sight, but nevertheless 
invisible to him. It is certain that within that little 
space there are organized beings, each of marvellous 
construction, independent of the rest, and endowed 
with the mysterious principle of vitality, to the amount 
of a number which could not have been told by units 
if there could have been a man so employed from the 
time of Adam to this hour ! Let him indulge for a 
moment the idea of such a perfect transformation of 
his faculties as that all this population should become 
visible to him, each and any individual being pre- 
sented to his perception as a distinct object of which 
he could take the same full cognizance as he now 
can of the large living creatures around him. What 
a perfectly new world ! What a stupendous crowd 
of sentient agents ! What an utter solitude, in com- 
parison, that world of living beings of which alone 
his senses had been competent to take any clear ac- 
count before ! And then let him consider whether 
it be in his power, without plunging into gross ab- 
surdity, to form any other idea of the creation and 
separate subsistence of these beings, than that each 
of them is the distinct object of the attention and the 
power of that one Spirit in which all things subsist. 
Let him, lastly, extend the view to the width of the 
whole terrestrial field, of our mundane system, of the 
universe — with the added thought how long such a 
creation has existed, and is to exist. 

4. Dependence on God for returning seasons. — We 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 269 

are in our places here on the surface of the earth, to 
wait in total dependence for Him to cause the sea- 
sons to visit our abode, as helpless and impotent as 
particles of dust. If the Power that brings them on 
were to hold them back, we could only submit, or re- 
pine and perish ! His will could strike with an in- 
stant paralysis the whole moving system of Nature. 
Let there be a suspension of his agency, and all would 
stop ; or a change of it, and things would take a new 
and fearful course ! Yet we are apt to think of the 
certainty of the return of the desired season in some 
other light than that of the certainty that God will 
cause it to come. With a sort of passive irreligion 
we allow a something, conceived as an established 
order of Nature, to take the place of the Author and 
Ruler of Nature, forgetful that all this is nothing but 
the continually acting power of God ; and that noth- 
ing can be more absurd than the notion of God's hav- 
ing constituted a system to be, one moment, inde- 
pendent of himself. 

5. Change of spring grateful as surprising — its 
analogy. — Consider next this beautiful vernal sea- 
son ; what a gloomy and unpromising scene and sea- 
son it arises out of! It is almost like creation from 
chaos ; like life from a state of death. If we might 
be allowed in a supposition so wide from probability 
as that a person should not know what season is to 
follow, while contemplating the scene, and feeling 
the rigors of winter, how difficult it would be for hira 
to comprehend or believe that the darkness, dreaii- 
ness, bleakness, and cold — the bare, desolate, and 
dead aspect of Nature could be so changed. If he 
could then in some kind of vision behold such a scene 
as that now spread over the worth — he would be dis- 
posed to say : " It can not be ; this is absolutely a new 
creation or another world !" Might we not take an 
instruction from this, to correct the judgments we are 
prone to form of the Divine goverament ? We are 
23* 



270 Foster's thoughts. 

placed within one limited scene and period of the 
great succession of the Divine dispensations — a dark 
and gloomy one — a prevalence of evil. We do not 
see how it can be, that so much that is offensive and 
grievous, should be introductory to something de- 
lightful and glorious. " Look, how fixed ! how in- 
veterate ! how absolute ! how unchanging ! is not this 
a character of perpetuity !" If a better, nobler scene 
to follow is intimated by the spirit of prophecy, in fig- 
ures analogous to the beauties of spring, it is regarded 
with a kind of despondency, as if prophecy were but 
a kind of sacred poetry ; and is beheld as something 
to aggravate the gloom of the present, rather than to 
draw the mind forward in delightful hope. So we 
allow our judgments of the Divine government — of 
the mighty field of it, and of its progressive periods 
— to be formed very much upon an exclusive view 
of the limited, dark portion of his dispensations which 
is immediately present to us ! But such judgments 
should be corrected by the spring blooming around 
us, so soon after the gloomy desolation of winter. 
The man that we were supposing so ignorant and 
incredulous, what would he now thiitk of what he 
had thought then 1 

6. Sublimity of a mountain. — We behold a lofty 
mountain, which has been seen by so many eyes of 
shepherds, laborers, and fancy's musing children, that 
will see it no more. While we view the towering 
majesty and unchangeable sedateness of its cliffs and 
sides, and the venerable gloom of forty centuries im- 
pressed on its brow, imparting a deeper solemnity to 
the sky, which sometimes darkens the summit with 
its clouds and thunders, the expression of our feelings 
is — how sublime ! 

7. Sublimity of a cataract. — We have taken our 
stand near a great cataract; the thundering dash, the 
impetuous rebound, the furious turbulence, and the 
murky vapor— oh, what a spectacle ! sometimes, while 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 271 

we have gazed, the noise and mass of waters seemed 
to increase every moment, threatening to involve and 
annihilate us. We could fancy we heard preternat- 
ural sounds — the voice of death — through the roar. 
It seemed as if some hideous breach had taken place 
of the regular order of the system, and the element 
were rushing from its natural state into strange com- 
bustion, as the commencement of ruin. It gives a 
most striking representation of omnipotent vengeance 
pouring on enormous guilt. We wonder almost that 
the stream could change the calmness with which it 
flowed a little while before into such dreadful tumult, 
and that from such dreadful tumult it could subside 
into calmness again. 

8. Suhlimity of the sea. — Perhaps we have seen 
the sea reposing in calmness. Its ample extent and 
glassy smoothness seeming almost to rival the sky 
expanded above it ; its depth to us unknown ; the 
thought that we stand near a gulf, capable in one 
hour of extinguishing all human life — and the thought 
that this vast body, now so peaceful, can move, can 
act with a force quite equal to its magnitude — inspire a 
sublime sentiment. Perhaps we have seen it in tem- 
pest, moving with a host of mountains to assault the 
eternal barrier which confines its power. If there 
were in reality spirits of the deep, it might suit them 
well to ride on these ridges, or howl in this raging 
foam. We have often seen the fury of little beings; 
but how insignificant in comparison of what we now 
behold, the world in a rage ! Indeed, we could al- 
most imagine that the great world is informed with 
a soul, and that these commotions express the agita- 
tions of its passions. Undoubtedly to mariners, haz- 
arded far off in the midst of such a scene, the sub- 
limity is lost in the danger. HoiTor is the sentiment 
with which they survey the vast flood, rolling in hide- 
ous steeps, and gulfs, and surges ; while at a dis- 
tance, on the gloomy limit of the view, despair is 



272 Foster's thoughts. 

seen to stand, summoning forward still new billows 
without end. But, to a spectator on the land, the in- 
fluence which breathes powerfully from the scene, 
and which conscious danger would darken into hor- 
ror, is illuminated into awful sublimity, by the per- 
fect security of his situation. 

9. Suhlimity of the sun. — But the sun far trans- 
cends all these objects, and yet mingles no terror with 
the emotion of sublimity. His grandeur is expressed 
in that vivid fluctuation, and that profuse effulgence, 
which, so superior to the faintness of a merely re- 
flective luminary, are the signs of an original, inex- 
haustible fire. He has the aspect of a potentate, am- 
bitious in universal empire of nothing but the power 
of universal beneficence; and a stranger to the char- 
acter of our part of the creation would think that 
must be a pure and happy world which is blest with 
so grand a radiance ! What a pleasure to see hira 
]'ise-— but partially at first, as with a modest delay, 
till the smile which his appearance kindles over the 
world invites him to come forward. A certain de- 
mure coldness which a little while before gave every 
object a coy and solitary air, shutting up even the 
beauties of every flower from our sight, is changed 
by his full appearance into a kind of social gayety, 
and all things, animate and inanimate, seem to re- 
joice with us and around us. We view him climb- 
ing the clouds that sometimes appear on the horizon 
in the form of mountains, which he seems to set on 
fire as he climbs. In his course through the sky, he 
is sometimes seen shaded with clouds, as if passing 
under the umbrage of a great forest, and sometimes 
in the clear expanse, like a vast fountain of the ele- 
ment of which minds are made. From morning till 
evening he has the dominion of all that is grand and 
beautiful over the face of nature, and seems at once 
to make it his own, and to make it ours. His glories 
are augmented in his decline, as he passes down the 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 273 

sky amid a wilderness of beautiful clouds, the incense 
of the world, collected to honor him as he retires, 
til] at last he seems to descend into a calm sea with 
amber shores — leaving, however, above the horizon 
a mellow lustre, soft and sweet, as the memory of a 
departed friend. How important and dignified should 
that course of action be, which is lighted by such a 
lamp ! How magnificent that system which required 
so great a luminary — and to what a stupendous ele- 
vation will that thouQrht rise, which must vault over 
such an orb of glory, in its way to contemplate a Be- 
ing still infinitely greater ! 

10. Sublimity of the heavens. — When the night is 
come, we may look up to the sublime tranquillity of 
the heavens, where the stars are seen, like nightly 
fires of so many companies of spirits, pursuing their 
inquiries over the superior realms. We know not 
how far the reign of disorder extends, but the stars 
appear to be beyond its limits ; and, shining from 
their remote stations, give us information that the 
universe is wide enough for us to prosecute the ex- 
periment of existence, through thousands of stages, 
perhaps in far happier climes than this. Science is 
the rival of imagination here, and by teaching that 
these stars are suns, has given a new interest to the 
anticipation of eternity, which can supply such inex- 
haustible materials of intelligence and wonder. Yet 
these stars seem to confess that there must be still 
sublimer regions for the reception of spirits refined 
beyond the intercourse of all material lights ; and 
even leave us to imasjine that the whole material uni- 
verse itself is only a place where beings are appoint- 
ed to originate, and to be educated through succes- 
sive scenes, till passing over its utmost bounds into 
the immensity beyond, they there at length find them- 
selves in the immediate presence of the Divinity. 

11. Rising of the moon : train of refection suggest- 
ed by it. — Have just seen the moon rise, and wish the 



274 poster's thoughts. 

imasfe to be eternal. I never beheld her in so much 
character, nor with so much sentiment, all these thirty 
years that I have lived. Emerging from a dark mount- 
ain of clouds, she appeared in a dim sky, w^hich gave 
a sombre tinge to her most majestic aspect. It seemed 
an aspect of solemn, retiring severity, vv^hich had long 
forgotten to smile ; the aspect of a being which had 
no sympathies with this world ; of a being totally re- 
gardless of notice, and having long since with a gloomy 
dignity resigned the hope of doing any good, yet pro- 
ceeding with composed, unchangeable self-determina- 
tion to fulfil her destiny, and even now looking over 
the world at its accomplishment. (Happy part of 
the figure.) Felt it difficult to divest the moon of 
that jjersonality and consciousness which my imagi- 
nation had recognised from the first moment. With 
an effort, alternated the ideas of her being a mere 
lucid body, and of her being a conscious power, and 
felt the latter infinitely more interesting, and even 
more as if it were natural and real. Do not know 
how I found in the still shades, that dimmed in sol- 
emnness the lower part of her orb, the suggestion of 
immortality, and the wish to be a " disembodied pow- 
er." Question to the silent spirits of the night : 
** What is your manner of feeling as you contemplate 
all these scenes ? Are yours all ideas of absolute sci- 
ence, or do they swim in visionary fancy ]" The ap- 
prehension of soon losing my power o^ seeing a world 
so superabundant of sentiment and soul, is very mourn- 
ful. 

12. The farthest excursion of the imagination does 
not reach the limit of the universe. — In conversation 

at W 's,had a splendid revel of imagination among 

the stars, caused by the mention of Herschel's tele- 
scope, and some astronomical facts asserted by him. 
The images, like Lee's poetry, were, from a basis A 
excellence, flung away into extravagance. But it is 
a striking reflection, that when the wild dream of 



OBSERVATION OP NATURE 275 

imagination is past, the thing is still real : there is a 
sun ; there are stars and systems ; innumerable worlds, 
on which the soberest depositions of science far tran- 
scend all the visions that fancy can open to enthu- 
siasm ! 

13. Vast difparity between the grandeur of Nature 
and the sentiments ivith which it is contemplated. — I 
have once more been throwing an eager gaze over 
the heaven of stars, with the alternate feelings of 
shiinking into an atom and expanding into an angel 
— what I but am now ! what I may he hereafter ! I 
am amazed that so transcendently awful a spectacle 
should seize attention so seldom, and aifect the habit 
of thought so little. What is the most magnificent 
page of a heroic poem, compared with such an ex- 
panse of glorious images ? It seems the grand por- 
tico into that infinity in which the incomprehensible 
Being- resides. Oh, that this soul should have within 
itself so little of that amplitude and that divine splen- 
dor which deify the scene that for ever environs it ! 
Mortifying, that my scope of existence is so little, 
with the feeling as if it might be so vast. The hem- 
isphere of thought surely ought to have some analogy 
with the hemisphere of vision. Most mortifying, that 
this wondrous, boundless universe should be so little 
mine, either by knowledge or by assimilating influ- 
ence ! But this vision gives a delightful omen of 
what the never-dying mind may at length behold — 
may at last become ! Oh, may I never again diso- 
bey or forget a Power whose existence pervades all 
yonder stars, and is their grandeur ! It is indeed pos- 
sible to engage his attention, and enjoy his friend- 
ship for ever ! In this comparison, what becomes of 
the importance of our human friendships ? Yet still 
I am man, and the social, tender sentiment at this 
very moment says in my heart, " There are one or 
two dear persons whom I can not but wish to have 



276 poster's thoughts. 

for my affectionate, impassioned associates in explo- 
ring" those divine regions. 

14. Grand conceit of the sun and a comet as con- 
scious heings, encountei'ing each other in the circuit 
of the heavens. — Very grand idea, presenting the sun 
and a comet as conscious beings, of hostile or dubious 
determination toward each other. The comet, though 
a less orb, yet fraught with inextinguishable ardor, 
passes near the sun in his course, and dares to look 
him in the face. The aspect of fearless calmness with 
which the greater orb regards him. I have the im- 
age, but can not express it. — Fingal and Cathmor, &c. 

15. Description of an exquisitely soft and pensive 
evening. — It is as if the soul of Eloisa pervaded all 
the air. 

16. Little hird in a tree. — Bird, 'tis pity such a de- 
licious note should be silenced by winter, death, and, 
above all, by annihilation. I do not and I can not be- 
lieve that all these little spirits of melody are but the 
snuff of the grand taper of life, the mere vapor of ex- 
istence, to vanish for ever. 

17. On listening to the song of a hird. — Sweet bird ! 
it is a tender and entrancing note, as if breathed by 
the angel of love ; rather the infinite spirit of love in- 
spires thy bosom, and thou art right while thou sing- 
est to raise those innocent little eyes to heaven ! 

18. On seeing a butterfly. — Saw a most beautiful 
butterfly, which I was half inclined to chase. Qu. 
Which would be the stronger excitement to such pur- 
suit, the curiosity raised by seeing such an object for 
the first time, or the feeling which, as now, is a relic 
of the interests and amusements of early youth 1 

19. Correspondences probable between remote parts 
of the universe. — One wonders in how many respects 
a real resemblance exists through the creation. One 
may doubt whether, if there be embodied inhabitants 
in the planets of other suns, or even in the other plan- 
ets of our own system, they have forms anything like 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 277 

ours. They may be square, orbicular, or of any other 
form. One analogy (physical analogy), however, 
strikes me as prevailing through every part of the 
universe that sioht or science can reach, and that is 
— -fire. The fixed stars are the remotest matenal ex- 
istences we know of, and they certainly must be fire, 
like that which exists in a nearer part of the creation. 
This striking circumstance of similarity warrants the 
supposition of many more in the physical phenomena 
of the distant parts of the universe — and may not this 
physical conformity warrant the supposition of a sim- 
ilarity in the moral j^henomena of the different re- 
gions of the creation ? 

20. Looking at darh and moving clouds. — Large 
masses of black cloud, following one another like a 
train of giants, in sullen silence, answering the azure 
smiles of Heaven that gleam between, with a Vulca- 
nian frown. 

21. Observation during a visit in a rural district. 
— Visit to a farmer. Has a wife and ten children. 
A great deal of mutual complacency between this 
pair. The children very pleasing. Played with 
several of them, particularly a delightful little boy 
and girl. Observed the various animals in the farm- 
yard Most amusing gambols of the little boy 

with a young dog. How soon children perceive if 
they are noticed. In many of their playful actions 
one can not tell how much is from the excitement 
they feel from being looked at and talked of, and 
how much is from the simple promptings of their own 
inclination. Observed a long time, in the fields, the 
down of thistles. Pleased in looking at the little 
feathery stars softly sailing through the air, and ap- 
pealing bright in the beams of the setting sun. But 
next observed the little sportive flies, that show life 
and loill in their movements. What a stupendous dif- 
ference ! Talked on education. The advantages 
of a large family. Importance of making a family 

24 



278 poster's thoughts. 

a society, so as to preclude tlie need of other com- 
panions, and adscititious animation and adventure. 
Absolute necessity of preventing as far as possible 
any communication of the children w^ith those of the 
neighborhood. 

22. Development of truth from reflective observa- 
tion. — I have often noticed the process in my mind, 
when in the outset of a journey or day, I have set 
myself to observe whatever should fall within ray 
sphere. For some time at first I can do no more 
than take an account of bare facts ; as, there is a 
house ; there a man ; there a tree ; such a speech 
uttered ; such an incident happens, &c., &c. After 
some time, however, a large enginery begins to work; 
I feel more than a simple perception of objects ; they 
become environed with an atmosphere, and shed forth 
an emanation. They come accompanied with trains 
of images, moral analogies, and a wide diffused, vital- 
ized, and indefinable kind of sentimentalism. Gen- 
erally, if one can compel the mind to the laborof the 
first part of the process, the interesting sequel will 
soon follow. After one has passed a few hours in 
this element of revelation, which presents this old 
world like a new vision all around, one is ashamed 
of so many hundred walks and days which have been 
vacant of observation and reflection. 

23. Varied knoivledge greatly increases the inter- 
est, and instruction of daily observation. — Power of 
mind and refinement of feeling being supposed equal, 
the numberof a person's intei-ests and classes of knowl- 
edge will have a great effect to extend or confine his 
sphere of observation. Was struck lately in remark- 
ing Lunell's superiority over me in this respect. In a 
given scene or walk, I should make original obser- 
vations belonging to the genei'al laws of taste, to fan- 
cy, sentiment, moral reflection, rehgion ; so would he, 
with great success ; but, in addition, he would make 
observations in reference to the arts, to geographical 



OBSERVATlOxN OF NATURE. 279 

comparison, to historical comparison, to commercial 
interest, to the artificial laws of elegance, to the ex- 
isting institutions of society. Every new class of 
knowledge, then, and every new subject of interest, 
becomes to an observer a new sense, to notice innu- 
merable facts and ideas, and consequently receive 
endless pleasurable and instructive hints, to which 
he had been else as insensible as a man asleep. This 
is like employing at once all the various modes of 
catching birds, instead of one only. It is another 
question, whether the mind's observing powers will 
act less advantageously in any one given direction 
from being diverted into so many directions. 

24. Difference between seeing and ohserving. — I am 
not observing, I am only seeing : for the beam of my 
eye is not charged with thought. 

25. On observing in a moonlight walk the shadow 
of a great rock in a piece of water. — Astonishing num- 
ber of analogies with moral truth, strike one's ima- 
gination in wandering and musing through the scenes 
of nature. Or, is analogy a really existing fact, or 
merely an illusive creation of the mind within itself? 
Suggested in a moonlight walk, by observing a great 
rock reflected downward as far as its height upward, 
in a still piece of water at its foot, and by comparing 
this deception to that delusive magic of imagination 
which magnifies into double its proper dimensions of 
importance an object which is interesting, 

26. Thoughts in traversing rural scenes. — Repeat- 
ed feeling, on traversing various rural scenes, of the 
multitudinous, overwhelming vastness of the creation. 
What a world of images, suggestions, mysteries ! 

27. On observation. — The capabilities of any sphere 
of observation are in proportion to the force and num- 
ber of the observer's faculties, studies, interests. In 
one given extent of space, or in one walk, one per- 
son will be struck by five objects, another by ten, an- 
other by a hundred, some by none at all. 



280 poster's thoughts. 

28. Vivifying injiuences of imagination. — Fancy 
makes vitality where it doe>s not find it; to it all things 
are alive. On this unfrequented walk even the dry 
leaf that is stirred by a slight breath of air across the 
path, seems for a moment to have its little life and its 
tiny purpose. 

29. Diversion from natural to artificial scenes. — 
How much a traveller's attention is commonly en- 
grossed by the works of art, houses, carriages, &c. ; 
and how little is it directed to the endless varieties 
of nature. 

30. Lively fancy invests inanimate ohjectsivith life. 
— In the moment of uncontrolled fancy and feeling, 
one attributes perceptions like one's own to even in- 
animate objects ; for instance, that solitary tree ap- 
pears to me as if regretting its desolate, individual 
state. 

31. Mankind acquire most of their knowledge hy 
sensation, and very little hy refection. — How little of 
our knowledge of mankind is derived from intention- 
al accurate observation. Most of it has, unsought, 
found its way into the mind from the continual pre- 
sentations of the objects to our unthinking view. It 
is a knowledg:e of sensation more than of reflection. 
Such knowledge is vague and superficial. There is 
no science of human nature in it. It is rather a habit 
of feeling than an act of intellect. It perceives ob- 
vious, palpable peculiarities ; but nice distinctions, 
delicate shades, are invisible to it. A philosopher 
will study all men with as accurate observation as he 
would some individual on whose dispositions, opin- 
ions, or whims, he believed his fate to depend. 

32. Advantage of the close study of character. — ■ 
Very advantageous exercise to incite attentive obser- 
vation and sharpen the discriminating faculty, to com- 
pel one's self to sketch the character of each person 
one knows. 

33. Women observe manners 7nore than characters. 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 281 

— Some one said that women remarked characters 
more discriminately than men. I said, "They re- 
mark manners far more than characters." The men- 
tal force which might be compressed and pointed 
into a javelin, to jpierce quite through a character, 
they splinter into little tiny darts to stick all over the 
features, complexion, attitude, drapery, &c. How 
often I have entered a room with the embarrassment 
of feeling that all my motions, gestures, postures, 
dress, &c., &c., &c., were critically appreciated, and 
self-complacently condemned ; but at the same time 
with the bold consciousness that the inquisition could 
reach no further. I have said with myself, " My 
character, that is the man, laughs at you behind this 
veil ; I may be the devil for what you can tell ; and 
you would not perceive neither if I were an ang-el 
of light." ^ 

34, Unusual appreciation of the Beauties of nature. 
— A young lady, whose perceptions were often nat- 
ural and correct without her being able to appreciate 
them, said to a friend of mine, "I like to walk in the 
country with you because you are pleased with re- 
marking objects and talking of them. The compan- 
ions I have been accustomed to would say, when I 
wished to do this, ' Carohne, take less notice of the 
fields and more of the company ! ! !' " This young 
woman, amid much puerility, would frequently ex- 
press, unconscious of their value, feelings so natural 
and just as to be quite interesting, and sometimes 
even striking to a philosopher. I compared her to 
the African, James Albert, who, when come to Eno-- 
land and in possession of money, would give to a 
beggar as it might happen, a penny or a half-guinea, 
unapprized of the respective value of each. 

35. Philosophizing in observation. — "I know as 
well as you the folly of wandering for ever among the 
abstractions of philosophy, while truth's business and 
ours is with the real world. I am endeavoring to 

24* 



282 poster's thoughts. 

learn truth from observations on facts. I am trying 
to take off the hide of the actual world, but it must 
be curried by philosophy, you will grant me, to be 
made fit for all the useful purposes." 

36. Effect on one's ideas from Tnusing so much suh 
dio. — A sort of vacant outline of greatness ; a wide- 
ness of compass without solidity and exactness. 

37. Observing is reading the hook of nature. — 
" Looking at these objects is reading !" said I to my- 
self, while beholding sheep, meads, &c. " Is not 
this more than reading descriptions of these things'?" 
I had been regretting how little I had read respecting 
some things that can be seen. 

38. In appreciation of the wonderful laws of nature 
displayed in familiar things. — Mr. H. and I looked 
a considerable time with much curiosity and gratifi- 
cation in one of the irregularly cut pendent glasses 
of a lustre in which we saw the same beautiful dis- 
play of colored tints and brilliancies as in the prism, 
only more irregular and vaiiegated. It was not the 
glass toy we for a moment thought about, but the 
strange and beautiful vision, and those laws of nature 
that could produce it. A young lady present, of 
polished and expensive education, large fortune, and 
fond of personal and furniture ornaments, expressed 
sincerely her wonder at our childish fancy in finding 
anything to please us in such an object; and said she 
would reserve the first thing of this kind she should 
meet with, if no other children claimed it, for one of 
us. I did not fail to observe the circumstance, as 
supplying another instance, in addition to the ten 
thousand one has met with before, of persons who 
never saw the world around them, who are strangers 
to all its witcheries of beauty, and who, at the same 
time, indulge a ridiculous passion for the petty pro- 
ductions of art subserving vanity. 

39. Improvement of observation more important 
than its extension. — Important reflection in opposition 



OBSERVATION OF NATURE. 283 

to the regret of not having seen more of the world m 
each of its departments. " But I have seen far more 
of the work], that is, of event, character, and natural 
scenes, than I have turned into knowledge— and this 
alone could be the value of seeing still more." 

40. A man of ideality diffuses his life through all 
things around him. — Made in conversation, but can 
not recollect sufficiently to write, a vivid and happy 
display of what may be called physiopathy, a faculty 
of pervading all nature with one's own being, so as 
to have a perception, a life, and an agency, in all things. 
A person of such a mind stands and gazes at a tree, 
for instance, till the object becomes all wonderful, and 
is transfigured into something visionary and ideal. 
He is amazed what a tree is, how it could, from a 
little stem which a worm might crop, rise up into that 
majestic size, and how it could ramify into such mul- 
titudinous extent of boughs, twigs, and leaves. Fan- 
cy climbs up from its root like ivy, and twines round 
and round it, and extends to its remotest shoots and 
tremblinsr foliasre. But this is not all: the tree soon 
becomes to your imagination a conscious being, and 
looks at you, and communes with you; ideas cluster 
on each branch, meanings emanate fror.j eveiy twig. 
Its tallness and size look conscious majesty; roaring 
in the wind its movements express tremendous emo- 
tion. In sunshine or soft showers it cariies a gay, a 
tender, or a pensive character; it frowns in winter 
on a gloomy day. If you observe a man of this or- 
der, though his body be a small thing, invested com- 
pletely with a little cloth, he expands his being in a 
grand circle all around him. He feels as if he grew 
in the grass and flowers, and groves ; as if he stood 
on yonder distant mountain-top, conversing with 
clouds, or sublimely sporting among their imaged 
precipices, caverns, and ruins. He flows in that river, 
chafes in its cascades, smiles in the aqueous flowers, 
frisks in the fishes, and is sympathetic with every bird. 



284 Foster's thoughts. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

MISCELLANIES. 

1. Visit to TJiornhury church : rejiections. — Went 
to Thornbury church, in order to ascend the tower, 
which is very high. Walked (Hughes and I) about 
awhile in the church. Saw one or two ancient mon- 
umental inscriptions, and. looked with intense disgust, 
as I always do, at the stupid exhibitions of coarsely- 
executed heraldry. Ascended the tower. Observed 
both in the staircase of the tower, and on the leaden 
roof of the church, the initials of the names of visi- 
tants, some of whom must now have been dead a 
century. Reflections on the forbearance of Time, in 
not obliterating these memorials ; on the persons who 
cut or drew these rude remarks, their motives for 
doing it, their present state in some other world ; the 
succession of events and lives since these marks were 
made, &c. Waited a good while before we could 
open the small door which opens from the top of the 
staircase to the platform of the tower. Amusing play 
with my own mind on the momentary exjDcctation of 
beholding the wide, beautiful view, though just now 
confined in a narrow, darkish position. Difference 
as to the state of the mind, as to its perceptions, be- 
tween having, or not having, a little stone and mor- 
tar close around one. Came on the top. The rooks, 
jackdaws, or whatever they are that frequent this 
kind of buildings, flew away. So ere long we hope 
everything that belongs to the established church, at 
the approach of dissenters, will be off. 



MISCELLANIES. 285 

Admired the extensive view; looked down on the 
ruins of an ancient castle in the vicinity; frightful 
effect of looking directly down much lessened by the 
structure all around the top, of turrets, high parapet, 
and a slight projection just below the edge. Yet felt 
a sensation ; thought of this as a mode of execution 
for a criminal or a martyr. Endeavored to realize 
the state of being impelled to the edge and lifted 
over it. Endeavored to imagine the state of a per- 
son whose dearest friend should perhaps, in conse- 
quence of some unfortunate movement of his, fall 
off; degree and nature of the feeling that would ef- 
fectually prompt him to throw himself after ; morality 
of the act. Qu. Whether either of us have a friend 
for whom one should have thus much feeling ? Prob- 
ability, from striking instances, that many mothers 
would do this for a child. 

Examined the decaying stone-work ; thought again 
of the lapse of ages ; appearance of sedate indiffer- 
ence to all things which these ancient structures wear 
to my imagination, which can not see them long with- 
out personifying them. Thickets of moss on the stone. 
Noticed with surprise a species of vegetation on the 
surface of several plates of iron. Observed with an 
emotion of pleasure the scar of thunder on one of 
the tun*ets. Sublime and enviable office, if such the 
voice of the angels who wield the thunder and light- 
ning. Descended from the tower, to which we shall 
probably ascend no more ; this partly a serious, pen- 
sive idea ; yet do not care ; what is the place, or any 
place, to us % We shall live when this is reduced to 
dust. 

2. Precipice reflected in a deep pit : analogy. — A 
picture of a precipice reflected in a deep pit, tran- 
scendently beautiful ! A small cascade from the top 
falling and fretting on point after point of the rocky 
precipice. Most beautiful aquatic green, in many 
recesses of the precipice nourished by this water. I 



286 Foster's thoughts. 

wandered and gazed here five years since. Dismal, 
sombre look of the farthest point of the shelving rock, 
visible down through the dark water of the pit. Pret- 
ty innocent dimples on the surface of this pit, caused 
by a gentle breath of air. Analogy — Deep villain 
smiles. 

3. Rejlectionsfromasurfaceoficater: analogy.- — 
Most magical succession, for several miles, of reflec- 
tions on the glassy surface of a canal, of the adjacent 
hill and wood scenery. One stripe of reflection of a 
distant scene, and a grand one, in a small, narrow 
piece of water in a field, so that this foreign piece 
seemed joined into the verdant field. Analogy — 
transient view of heaven in this common life. 

4. On seeing a halcyo7i. — Felt more respect for it 
on account of its classic celebrity, than a common bird. 
But how arbitrary are these distinctions ; the bird has 
no dignified consciousness of superiority, and, except 
for its beauty, possesses none. 

5. Ohsej'vcd with interest the tumults occasioned, in 
a canal, by the sluice of the lock being opened ; but 
recollected what vast commotion must be caused 
by the rebound of Niagara, and instantly turned 
away. 

6. Effect of natural scenes on character. — Hope to 
derive considerable influence toward simplicity and 
refinement from my pathetic conversations with so 
many charming natural scenes. 

7 . Objects of affection invested icith additional charms 
hy interesting associations. — Stood in a solitary grove, 
just opposite to a large cascade, on which I looked 
with long and fixed attention. Most interesting to 
observe the movements of my own mind, particularly 
as to the ideas which come from distant (unseen) ob- 
jects and scenes. The images of several favorite 
persons, but particularly one, came around me with 
an aspect inconceivably delicious. Tried, to ascer- 
tain how much of this charm was added to these im- 



MISCELLANIES. 



287 



ages by the influence of the beautiful scene where 
they appeared to me. 

8. Field of oaks: figure.— Uost remarkable ap- 
pearance of a field full of oaks cut down, disbarked 
and embrowned by time. Gave me forcibly the idea 
of an assemblage of gi^i^t monsters; or of the skele- 
tons of a giants' field of battle. 

9. Moonbeams on the stirface of a rzi'cr.— Exquis- 
itely curious appearance of the moonshine on the rip- 
pled surface of a broad river (Thames) like an infi- 
nite multitude of little fiery gems moving and spark- 
lino- through endless confasion ; or hke brilliant insects 
sportino-, all intermingled and never tired or reposing, 
the most vivid frisks. At a great distance tlie ap- 
pearance is lost in an indistinct, diffiised light ; but 
they are there as busy as they are here. How busy 
activity can go on in the other regions of the earth, 
or another part of the town, without knowing or car- 
ing whether it is so here or not ! • • u 

10. On tlirowing large stones down a deep pit, with 
apparently a great depth of water at the bottom, a 
dark, sullen glimmer of which the eye occasionally 
caught. I felt almost a shuddering sensation at the 
gloomy and furious sound of the watei,in the impet- 
uous commotion caused by these stones.^ Strongly 
imagined how it would be for myself to fail down. 

11. Lantern in a dark night.— InlevQ^luig appear- 
ance of the tenebrious ghmmer it throws on the iif^ar- 
est shrubs and trees; and of the thick darkness that 
seems to lurk and frown close behind. 

12. Entered a large cavern, slophig down very 
steep, where a great number of human bot.cs have 
been found. Saw a considerable quantity of them 
myself. This cavern was itself but lately tound. It 
was broken into by digging away the rock. No con- 
jecture how or when these bones came there. 

13. Drops of rain falling on a sheet of water.— 
Thev have but the most transient effect on the water ; 



288 Foster's thoughts. 

they make a very slight impression of the moment, 
and then can be discerned no more. But observe 
these drops of rain falHng on "a meadow or garden : 
here they have an effect to heighten every color, and 
feed every growth. Is not this the difference be- 
tween the mind which the infinitude of sentiments 
and objects in this great world can never interest or 
alter, and that mind which feels the impression, and 
enriches itself with the value of them all 1 

14. Power of association. — A lady said she remem- 
bered a remarkable and romantic hill much more dis- 
tinctly now at the distance of a considerable number 
of years, from the impression made by a thunder- 
storm which happened when she was on the summit 
of this hill. I observed how advantageous it is to 
connect, if we could, some striking association with 
every idea or scene we wish to remember with per- 
manent interest. This is like framing and glazing 
the mental picture, and will preserve it an indefinite 
length of time. 

15. An observant man, in all his intercourse with 
society and the world, carries a pencil constantly in 
his hand, and, unperceived, marks on every person 
and thing the figure expressive of its value, and there- 
fore instantly on meeting that person or thing again, 
knows what kind and degree of attention to give it. 
This is to make something of experience. 

16. Selfish alliances easier and stronger than benevo- 
lent ones. — It is infinitely easier for any set of human 
beings to maintain a community of feeling in hostility 
to something else, than in benevolence toward one 
another; for here no sacrifice is required of any one's 
self-interest. And it is certain that the subordinate 
portions of society have come to regard the occu- 
pants of the tracts of fertility and sunshine, the pos- 
sessors of opulence, splendor, and luxury, with a deep, 
settled, systematic aversion ; with a disposition to con- 
template in any other light than that of a calamity an 



MISCELLANIES. 289 

extensive downfall of the favorites of fortune, when 
a brooding imagination figures such a thing as possi- 
ble ; and with but very slight monitions from con- 
science of the iniquity of the most tumultuary ac- 
complishment of such a catastrophe. 

17. Exhihition of overstrained politeness. — We 
have been obliged again and again to endeavor to 
drive out of our imagination the idea of a meeting 
of friends in China, where the first mandarin bows 
to the floor, and then the second mandarin bows to the 
floor, and then the first mandarin bows again to the 
floor, and thus they go on till friendship is satisfied or 
patience tired. 

18. Worthy patrons important. — Either Home or 
Junius, we really forget which, somewhere says that 
if the very devil himself could be supposed to put 
himself in the place of advocate and vindicator of 
some point of justice, he ought to be, so far, support- 
ed. We can not agree to this, for the simple reason 
that the just cause would ultimately suffer greater 
injury by the dishonor it would contract, in the gen- 
eral estimation of mankind, from the character of its 
vindicator, than probably it would suffer from the 
wrong against which it would be vindicated. 

19. Peculiarities of the age. — There is little dan- 
ger now of men's becoming recluses, ascetics, devo- 
tees ; systematically secluded from all attention to, 
and communication with, the active scenes of the 
world. For in this age men's own concerns — really 
and strictly their own — are becoming more implicated 
with the transactions of the wide, busy world. In 
the case of perhaps thousands of men in this country, 
their immediate interests — their proceedings — even 
their duty — are sensibly affected by what may be 
doing on the other side of the globe — in South Amer- 
ica, or in Spain, Italy, Constantinople. The move- 
ments in such remote scenes send an effect like the 
far-extending tremulations of an earthquake, which 

_ 25 



290 FOSTER S THOUGHTS. 

comes under the house, the business, the property, 

of men even here The pervading, connecting 

principle of community, throughout mankind, as one 
immense body, has become much more ahve. It is 
becoming much .more verified to he one body, how- 
ever extended, by the quicker, stronger sensation 
which pervades the rest of it, from what affects any 
part. There is indeed much of diseased and irrita- 
ble sensibility ; it is as if the parts were a grievance 
to one another, and would quarrel ; as if, like the 
hyena at Paris, the great animal would devour one 
of its own limbs. But still the great body is much 
more sensibly made to feel that it has its existence in 
all its parts Christian benevolence is now pros- 
ecuting its operations, not only with far greater ac- 
tivity and multiplicity of efforts, but on a far wider 
plan. Thus the religious interests, thoughts and dis- 
course of private individuals, are drawn out into some 
connexion, almost whether they will or not, with nu- 
merous proceedings and occurrences both at home 
and far off. 

20. Inequalities of the race. — Whatever you may 
say or fancy about the equality of the race, it needs 
only a little civilization to make one of them look 
down from a tower, and'the other to look up through 
a grate. 

21. Jl malignant ooservation of the world.— At- 
tention may be exercised on the actions, characters, 
and events, among mankind, in the direct service of 
the evil passions ; in the disposition of a savage beast, 
or an evil spirit, in a keen watchfulness to descry 
weakness, in order to make it a prey; in an attentive 
observation of mistake, ignorance, carelessness, or 
untoward accidents — in order to seize with remorse- 
less selfishness, unjust advantages; in a penetrating 
inquisition into men's conduct and character, in order 
to blast them ; or in lighter mood to turn them in- 
discriminately to ridicule. Or there may be such an 



MISCELLANIES. 291 

exercise in the temper of envy, jealousy, or revenge ; 
(or somewhat more excusably, but still mischievous- 
ly), for the purpose of exalting the observer in his own 
estimation. 

22. Doj'mant elements of evil in society. — There 
is a large proportion of human strength and feeling 
not in vital combination w^ith the social system, but 
aloof from it, looking at it with "gloomy and malign 
regard ;'' in a state progressive toward a fitness to be 
impelled against it with a dreadful shock, in the event 
of any great convulsion, that should set loose the 
legion of daring, desperate, and powerful spirits, to 
fire and lead the masses to its demolition. There 
have not been wanting examples to show with what 
fearful effect this hostility may come into action, in 
the crisis of the fate of the nation's ancient system ; 
where this alienated portion of its own people, rush- 
ing in, have revenged upon it the neglect of their 
tuition ; that neoflect which had abandoned them to 
so Utter a " lack of knowledge," that they really un- 
derstood no better than to expect their own solid ad- 
vantage in general havoc and disorder. 

23. An oppressed nation. — A nation tormented, 
plundered, exhausted, crushed down to extreme mis- 
ery under the hoofs of the whole troop of centaurs in 
authority, 

24. Contrasted conditions of society, — I am sorry not 
to have gained the knowledge which thirty or forty 
shillings would have purchased in London. At the 
expense of so much spent in charity, a person might 
have visited just once eight or ten of those sad re- 
tirements in darkness in dark alleys, where, in gar- 
rets and cellars, thousands of wretched families are 
dying of famine and disease. It would be most pain- 
ful, however, to see these miseries without the pow- 
er to supply any effectual relief. At the very same 
time you may see a succession which seems to have no 
end, of splendid mansions, equipages, liveries ; you 



292 poster's thoughts. 

may scent the effluvia of preparing feasts ; you may 
hear of fortunes, levees, preferments, pensions, cor- 
poration dinners, royal hunts, &c., &c., numerous 
beyond the devil's own arithmetic to calculate. This 
whole view of society might be called the devil's 
pi ay -bill ; for surely this world might be deemed a 
vast theatre, in which he, as manager, conducts the 
endless, horrible drama of laug-hing and suifering, 
w^hile the diabolical satyrs of^power, wealth and 
pride, are dancing round their dying victims ; a 
spectacle and an amusement for which the infernals 
will j^ay him liberal thanks. 

25. Imagined disclosure of the maclnnations and 
motives of rulers and courts. — If statesmen, including 
ministers, popular leaders, ambassadors, &c., would 
publish, before they go in the triumph of virtue to 
the " last audit," or leave to be published after they 
are gone, each a frank exposition of motives, cabals, 
and manoeuvres, it would give dignity to that blind 
adoration of power and rank in which mankind have 
always superstitiously lived, by supplying just reasons 
for that adoration. It would also give a new aspect 
to history ; and perhaps might tend to a happy ex- 
07'cism of that evil spirit which has never allowed 
nations to remain at peace. 

26. Responsihility of states, — Assuredly there will 
be persons found to be summoned forth as account- 
able for that conduct of states which we are contem- 
plating. Such a moral agency could not throw off 
its responsibility into the air, to be dissipated and lost 
like the black smoke of forges or volcanoes. 

27. Unworthy objects of war. — There may occur 
to his view some inconsiderable island, the haunt of 
fatal diseases, and rendered productive by means in- 
volving the most flagrant iniquity; an iniquity which 
it avenges by opening a premature grave for many 
of his countrymen, and by being a moral corrupter 
of the rest. Such an infested spot, nevertheless, may 



MISCELLANIES. 293 

have been one of the most material objects of a wide- 
ly destructive war, which has in effect sunk incalcu- 
lable treasure in the sea, and in the sands, ditches, 
and fields of plague-infested shores ; with a dreadful 
sacrifice of blood, life, and all the best moral feelings 
and habits. Its possession, perhaps, was the chief 
prize and triumph of all the grand exertion, the equiv- 
alent for all the cost, misery, and crime. 

28. War : its horrors ; slight grounds. — A certain 
brook or swamp in the wilderness, or a stripe of 
waste, or the settlement of boundaries in respect to 
some insignificant traffic, was difficult of adjustment 
between jealous, irritated, and mutually incursive 
neighbors ; and therefore national honor and interest 
equally required that war should be lighted up by 
land and sea, through several quarters of the globe. 
Or a dissension may have arisen upon the matter of 
some petty tax on an article of commerce ; an abso- 
lute will had been rashly signified on the claim ; pride 
had committed itself, and was peremptory for persist- 
ing ; and the resolution was to be prosecuted through 
a wide tempest of destruction protracted perhaps 
many years ; and only ending in the forced abandon- 
ment, by the leading power concerned, of infinitely 
more than war had been made in the determination 
not to forego ; and after an absolutely fathomless 
amount of every kind of cost, financial and moral, in 
this progress to final frustration. But there would 
be no end of recounting facts of this order. 

However whimsical it may appear to recollect that 
the great business of war is slaughter ; however de- 
plorably low-minded it may appear to regard all the 
splendor of fame with which war has been blazoned 
much in the same light as the gilding of that hideous 
idol to which the Mexicans sacrificed their human 
hecatombs ; however foolish it may be thought to 
make a difficulty of consenting to merge the eternal 
laws of morality in the policy of states ; and however 



294 Foster's thoughts. 

presumptuous it may seem to condemn so many privi- 
leged, and eloquent, and learned, and reverend person- 
ages, as any and every war" is sure to find its advo- 
cates — it remains an obstinate fact, that there are 
some men of such perverted perceptions as to appre- 
hend that revenge, rage, and cruelty, blood and fire, 
wounds, shrieks, groans, and death, with an infinite 
accompaniment of collateral crimes and miseries, are 
the elements of what so many besotted mortals have 
worshipped in every age under the title of *' glorious 
war." To be told that this is just the commonplace with 
whicb dull and envious moralists have always railed 
against martial glory, will not in the slightest degree 
modify their apprehension of a plain matter of fact. 
AVhat signifies it whether moralists are dull, envious, 
and dealers in commonplace, or not ? No matter who 
says it, nor from what motive ; the fact is, that war 
consists of the components here enumerated, and is 
therefore an infernal abomination, when maintained 
for any object, and according to any measures, not 
honestly within the absolute necessities of defence. 
In these justifying necessities, we include the peril to 
which another nation with perfect innocence on its 
part may be exposed, from the injustice of a third 
power ; as in the instance of the Dutch people, saved 
by Elizabeth from being destroyed by Spain. Now 
it needs not be said that wars, justifiable, on either 
side, on the pure principles of lawful defence, are 
the rarest things in history. Whole centuries all over 
darkened with the horrors of war may be explored, 
from beginning to end, without perhaps finding two 
instances in which any one belligerent power can be 
pronounced, to have adopted every precaution, and 
made every effort, concession, and sacrifice, required 
by Christian morality, in order to avoid war. 

The laws of this institution are fundamental and 
absolute, forming the j^i'ii^ary obligation on all its 
believers, and reducing all other rules of action to 



MISCELLANIES. 295 

find their place as they can, in due subordination — 
or to find no place at all Let an ambitious des- 
pot, or a profligate ministry, only give out the word 
that we must be at war with this or the other nation 
— and then a man who has no personal complaint 
against any living thing of that nation, who may not 
be certain it has committed any real injury against 
his own nation or government, nay, who possibly may 
be convinced by facts against which he can not shut 
his eyes, that his own nation or government is sub- 
stantially in the wrong — then this man, under the 
sanction of the word war, may, with a conscience en- 
tirely unconcerned, immediately go and cut down 
human beings as he would cut down a copse ! 

29. Scope and dignity of metaphysical inquiries. — 
Metaphysical speculation tries to resolve all consti- 
tuted things into their general elements, and those 
elements into the ultimate mysterious element of 
substance, thus leaving behind the various orders and 
modes of being, to contemplate being itself in its es- 
sence. It retires a while from the consideration of 
truth, as predicated of particular subjects, to explore 
those unalterable and universal relations of ideas 
which must be the primary principles of all truth. . . . 
In short, metaphysical inquiry attempts to trace things 
to the very first stage in which they can, even to the 
most penetrating intelligences, be the subjects of a 
thought, a doubt, or a proposition ; that profoundest 
abstraction, where they stand on the first step of dis- 
tinction and remove from nonentity, and where that 
one question might be put concerning them, the an- 
swer to which would leave no further question pos- 
sible. And having thus abstracted and penetrated 
to the state of pure entity, the speculation would 
come back, tracing it into all its modes and relations ; 
till at last metaphysical truth, approaching nearer and 
nearer to the sphere of our immediate knowledge, 
terminates on the confines of distinct sciences and ob- 



296 Foster's thoughts. 

vious realities. Now it would seem evident that this 
inquiry into primary truth must surpass, in point of 
dignity, all other speculations. If any man could 
carry his discoveries as far, and make his proofs as 
strong, in the metaphysical world, as Newton did in 
the physical, he would be an incomparably greater 
man than even Newton. 

30. All subjects resolvable into first principles. — 
All subjects have first principles, toward which an 
acute mind feels its investigation inevitably tending, 
and all first principles are, if investigated to their ex- 
treme refinement, metaphysical. The tendency of 
thought toward the ascertaining of these first princi- 
ples in every inquiry, as contrasted with a disposition 
to pass (though perhaps very elegantly or rhetorically) 
over the surface of a subject, is one of the strongest 
points of distinction between a vigorous intellect and 
a feeble one. 

31. Limits to metaj^hysical inquiries. — It is also 
true that an acute man who will absolutely prose- 
cute the raetaphysic of every subject to the last pos- 
sible extreme, with a kind of rebellion against the 
very laws and limits of Nature, in contempt of his 
senses, of experience, of the universal perceptions of 
mankind, and of Divine revelation, may reason him- 
self into a vacuity where he will feel as if he were 
sinking out of the creation. Hume was such an ex- 
ample ; but we might cite Locke and Reid, and some 
other illustrious men, who have terminated their long 
sweep of abstract thinking as much in the spirit of 
sound sense and rational belief as they began. 

32. Metaphysics a means of intellectual discipline. 
— It is so evident from the nature of things, and the 
whole history of philosophy, that they must in a great 
measure fail, when extended beyond certain contract- 
ed limits, that it is less for the portion of direct met- 
aphysical science which they can ascertain, than for 
their general effect on the thinking powers, that 



MISCELLANIES. 297 

we deem them a valuable part of intellectual disci- 
pline. 

33. Practical truths not recondite. — The truths con- 
nected with piety and the social duties, with the means 
of personal happiness, and the method of securing an 
ulterior condition of progressive perfection and feli- 
city, lie at the very surface of moral inquiries ; like the 
fruits and precious stores of the vegetable kingdom, 
they are necessary to supply inevitable wants, and are 
placed, by Divine Benevolence, within the reach of 
the meanest individual. 

34. Mohammedanism. — When he saw its pretend- 
ed sacred book supplanting the revelation of God by 
a farrago of ridiculous trifles, vile legends, and viler 
precepts, mixed with some magnificent ideas, stolen 
for the base purpose from that revelation, like the 
holy vessels of the temple brought in to assist the de- 
bauch of Belshazzar and his lords ; when he saw a 
detestable impostor acknowledged and almost adored 
in the office of supreme prophet and intercessor ; this 
imposture enjoined in the name of God to be enforced 
as far as the power of its believers can reach with fire 
and sword ; the happiness of another world promised 
to every sanguinary fanatic that dies in this cause, or 
even in any war that a Mohammedan tyrant may 
choose to wage; the representation of that other 
world accommodated to the notions and tastes of a 
horde of barbarians ; and, as a natural and just con- 
sequence of all, the whole social economy, after the 
energy and zeal of conquest had evaporated, living 
in a vast sink of ignorance, depravity, and wretch- 
edness. 

35. Remarkable manifestation of mind in a child. 
— What a divine enchantment there is mmind in ev- 
ery age and form ! I have felt it this morning with 
little Sarah Gibbs, a child of three or four years old, 
who can not yet articulate plainly, but of very ex- 
traordinary character for observation, thoughtfulness, 



298 Foster's thoughts. 

and gi'ave, deep passions, I took her on my knee, 
played with her hands, stroked her cheek, and never 
felt so much interested by any child of her age. Not 
that she said anything scarcely ; for though delighted 
as I knew with the attention of a person to whom 
she had been led to attach an idea of importance, she 
was serious, confused, and, as it were, self-inclosed; 
but I was certain that I held on my knee a being sig- 
nally marked from her coevals by an ample and deep- 
toned nature, of which perhaps the country could not 
furnish a parallel. She has a strange accuracy and 
discrimination in her remarks, and a sort of dignity 
of character which is not mingled with vanity, but 
.which puts one on terms of care with her, and makes 
one afraid to treat her as a child, or do or say any- 
thing which may offend her sense of character. She 
is affectionate to enthusiasm, but without any childish 
playfulness. When angry, she is not petulant, but 
incensed. She is loquacious often with her compan- 
ions and her schoolmistress, but still it is all thought 
and no frisk. She is a favorite with them all. The 
expression of her countenance is so serious, that one 
might think it impossible for her to smile ; Indeed, I 
have never seen her smile. Her parents are uncul- 
tivated people of the lower class, who have no per- 
ception of the value of such a jewel, and will proba- 
bly throw it away. (Should not one be very much 
inclined to cite such an instance as something very 
like a proof that children are born with very different 
proportions of the cajiahility of mind 1) 

36. Influence of music— Mr. R , who has travel- 
led over many parts of England, Scotland, and Wales, 
told me he had, at one time, a wish and a project 
to travel over France and the rest of the continent. 
While musing on this favorite design, he one day en- 
tered the cathedral, at Worcester, in the time of ser- 
vice. Walkinof in the aisles, and listeninsr to the or- 
gan which affected him very sensibly, his wish to 



MISCELLANIES. 299 

travel began to glow and swell in his mind into an 
almost overwhelming passion, which bore him irre- 
sistibly to a determination. He could not have felt 
more if he had seen an apparition, or heard a voice 
from the sky. Every idea on the subject seemed to 
present itself to his mind with a surprising vivid clear- 
ness and force ; and he believes that from that mo- 
ment nothing could have prevented his undertaking 
the enterprise but the commencement of the war. 

This seemed to me a happy illustration and proof 
of what I had maintained a few days before, in a con- 
versation on music, that it powerfully reinforces any 
passion which the mind is at the time" indulging, or to 
which it is predisposed. This was maintained in 
opposition to several amateurs of music, who asserted 
that sacred music has a powerful tendency to pro- 
duce, by its own influence, devotional feeling. They 
had mentioned, with strong approbation, a pair of 
reverend divines, who commonly make a small con- 
cert on the Sunday evening, and choose sacred mu- 
sic, as adapted to the day. The devotional effect of 
any music, except on devotional minds, was utterly 
denied and disproved ; and it was asserted that a 
young man, very susceptible to the impressions of 
music, if inclined to vicious pleasures, would proba- 
bly feel the sacred music inflame to intensity, and, at 
the same time, invest with a kind of vicious, seduc- 
tive refinement, the propensities which would lead 
him from the concert to the brothel. By the same 
rule, a devout man, who should be strongly affected 
by music, would probably, if other circumstances in 
the situation did not counteract, feel his devotion 
augmented by pathetic or solemn music. 

37. Peter in prison. — Follow him thither with com- 
passion. Imagine him looking (if there was a suffi- 
cient glimmer of light) round on the walls of his new 
abode, of impregnable thickness, with stron"g bars, 
a dreary dismal shade— ominous sounds ; and chains 



300 Foster's thoughts. 

on his limbs. " This it is," he might say, " to be an 
avowed and faithful servant of Him that died forme.'* 
But what if he said further, " Well I would rather be 
here, and be thus, for such a cause, than be the lord 
of Herod's or of Caesar's palace. While the body- 
is in a palace, the soul may be in prison ; and while 
the body is in prison, the soul may be in a palace." 
" He felt no restless agitation ; cast no desponding 
looks at the bars, the fetters, the walls, the guards ; 
indulged in no desperate imaginations or vain im- 
plorings. He slept between two soldiers, and in his 
chains, and under the doom of an inexorable tyrant.'* 
" The angel of the Lord came upon him, and a light 
shined in the prison." His entrance to Peter was 
with no tumult, and ostentation of power. It was so 
calm and silent that he did not awake. The angel 
** smote him on the side," and summoned him to rise. 
But it was a gentle violence. Not so he, or some 
of his celestial associates, had smitten the assailants 
of Lot. Not so the army of Senacherib — not so he 
smote Herod. A gentle violence ! Methinks an 
emblem of the death of a Christian ; a soft blow to 
emancipate him from the prison of mortality — to sum- 
mon and raise him to eternal liberty, to the amplitude 
of heaven. There was to be another time when Pe- 
ter would want the visit of such a messenger. And 
there will be a time when we also shall want it; when 
we shall have to go out from the prison-house of mor- 
tality — and from the world itself; and shall need such 
a messenger to be with us, and not to leave us — to 
accompany us in an immense and amazing journey ; 
that whereas Peter came to be delightedly and col- 
lectedly sensible of the grand intervention, when he 
found himself alone in the street, we may become 
sensible of the wondrous reality of it, by finding 
ourselves in the presence of saints and angels, and 
their Supreme Lord, ** Peter's deliverance." 

38. Powers of language. — Qy. Are the powers — 



MISCELLANIES. 301 

the capacity of human language limited by any other 
bounds than those which limit the mind's powers of 
conception ] Is there within the possibility of hu- 
man conception a certain order of ideas which no 
combinations of language could express 1 Would 
the English language, for example, in its strongest 
possible structure absolutely sink and fail under such 
conceptions as we may imagine a mighty spirit of the 
superior or nether regions to utter — so frail as not to 
make these ideas distinctly apparent to the human 
mind, supposing all the while that the mind could 
fully admit and comprehend these ideas, if there were 
any adequate vehicle to convey them ] Could divine 
inspiration itself, without changing the structure of 
the mind, impart to it such ideas as no language could 
express ? If a poet were to come into the world en- 
dowed with a genius, suppose ten times more sub- 
lime than Milton's, must he not abandon the attempt 
at composition in despair, from finding that language, 
like a feeble tool, breaks in his hand — from finding 
that when he attempts to pour any of his mental fluid 
into the vessel of language, that vessel in a moment 
melts or bursts ; from finding, that though he is Her- 
cules every inch, he is armed but with a distaff, and 
can not give his mighty strength its proportional ef- 
fect without his club 1 

39. " Omnis m Jioc,^^ is the description of the only 
character that I can give myself to entirely. Green 
was very much this ; a mind not only of deep tone, 
but always so. " Omnis in hoc ;''"' yes, I want in my 
associate something like continuous emotion. I hate 
a neutral reposing state of the passions, that kind of 
tranquillity which is merely the absence of all pregnant 
sentiment. I pass some time with a friend in the 
high excitement of interesting, perhaps impassioned 
conversation ; next day I revisit this friend for the 
sequel of this energetic season, myself glowing with 
the same feelings still. Well, with my friend the 
26 



302 Foster's thoughts. 

enthusiasm is all gone by ; his feelings are tame and 
easy; yesterday he was grave, ardent, every particle 
inlbued with sentiment ; we became interested to the 
pitch of intensity; I thought, "Let this become our 
habit and we shall become sublime." To-day he is 
in an easy, careless mood ; the heroic episode is past 
and over; he is perhaps sprightly and flippant; his 
voice has recovered from its tone of soul ; and he is 
perhaps complacently busy about some mere trifles. 
My heart shuts itself up and feels a painful chill ; I 
am glad to be gone to indulge alone my musings of 
regret and insulation. Women have more of this 
discontinuity than men. No one can be more than 
interested to-day, and degagee to-morrow. 

A man of melancholy feelings peculiarly feels this 
revulsion, with those who ai"e pensive only as an oc- 
casional sentiment; not like himself, as a habit. His 
associates should all bo of his own character. He 
emphatically wants unity of character in his friend. 

I have more of habitual character than you . 

A. person would better know where in the mental 
world to find me. The ascendant interest of yester- 
day is the ascendant interest of to-day too. It is un- 
fortunate in character for its nobler aspects to be 
transient. You have not sufficiently a grand com- 
manding principle of seriousness to pervade and har- 
monize the total of your habits. A love of the sub- 
lime is with you a sentiment ; with me it is a passion. 
In the gayety of innocence you sport at liberty, for- 
getful that a moral and immortal being should have 
all its faculties and feelings concentrated toward an 
important purpose. No one has given all the passion 
due to gi'eat objects till trivial ones have ceased to 
amuse him into even a temporary oblivion of them. 
Yes, after attention to the most solemn speculations, 
you can escape so comj^letely from their fascination, 
so soon brighten ofl* their interesting sombre, and enter 
into a mirthful party, and laugh with the utmost glee 



MISCELLANIES. 303 

and gaiete du ccput . Not so I; not so Edwin, if he 
were a person of real life ; not so Howard ; not so 
any one who is seized irrecoverably with a spirit of 
ardor till death. Yes, my friend, you let yourself be 
what may happen, rather than deliberately determine 
to be what you should, and all you can. 

40. Defence of the utilitarian theory. — Behold, on 
that eminence, the temple of utility — let us approach 
and enter. " I see no open, regular road thither." 
" True, on this side there is no regular approach ; 
but we can not gain the other side, and there is a 
most urgent re(25o;e for us to come up to the holy edi- 
fice. What then] let us ojpen for ourselves a way; 
let us cut through the tangled fence ; let us sacrifice 
a beautiful shrub, or even a fruit-tree, to clear our- 
selves a path, rather than lose forever an inestimable 
advantage." — "But granting your principle to be ab- 
stractly just, there is this serious objection. The right 
application of it in cases of real life will depend on 
delicate conscience and enliof-htened calculation. It 
is needless to remark how few of mankind are thus 
qualified." — " It is very true, and it is as if you were 
pointing out to travellers the way to a town, lying be- 
yond a wide and wilderness tract of country ; it passes 
through the intricacies of a solitary forest, and by 
some very dangerous spots. Two persons inquire 
of you the way to the town. The first is a child. 
You instantly direct him to go the plain great road, 
without so much as intimating that there is any other 
or shorter way. The other person is a man; a man 
of sense, with * his eyes about him ;' you say to him, 
* I commonly direct travellers to keep the great road, 
as the most certain and safe, though tedious ; but I 
think such a man as you might venture a shorter path. 
Observe me carefully ; having walked such a distance 
along the side of the hill yonder, you must turn to 
the right, just by an immensely large oak; then wind 
through the thick shade, by a path you will perceive 



304 Foster's thoughts. 

if you observe attentively, till you come suddenly to 
the edge of a great precipice; pass carefully along 
the edge of it till you descend into a glen; there you 
will observe an old wooden bridge across a deep 
water, a little below a cataract, the sound of which 
will seem to make the bridge tremble as you pass ; 
but it trembles because it is crazy ; be careful, there- 
fore, to step softly. You must then pass by the ruins 
of an abbey, and advance forward over a tract of 
rough ground till you come, &c., &c., &c.' Thus in 
morals I mean to assert that in some rare instances 
the path of duty may lie in a more direct line to its 
grand object, than by the letter of specific laws; but 
that perhaps only the eminently conscientious and 
intelligent few are competent to judge when this ex- 
ception takes place, and how to dispose of it proper- 
ly. * This is a curious kind of prerogative in morals 
in favor of your illumines.' I can not help it. I 
know that my principle, like every other grand prin- 
ciple, may be perverted to a fatal consequence, yet 
I can not relinquish it; for if it should ever happen 
(and the case has happened) that the letter of a moral 
law, owing to some extraordinary concurrence of 
circumstances, should stand in evident opposition to 
that grand utility, for the promotion of which all moral 
rules were appointed by the supreme Governor, it 
can not be a question which ouglit to be sacrificed." 

41. Supposition of angelic companionship. — De- 
lightful conversational revery on the idea of an angel 
living, walking, conversing with one for a month. 
Month of ecstatic sentiment! What profound and 
incurable regrets for his going away ! 

42. " Well, but this qualification might be attained, 
if a man would exert sufficient application." — " Ah, 
madam, the field of possibility is so beset round with 
a hedge of thorny //J." 

43. Logic efficient in persuasion. — There is an ar- 
gumentative way, not only of discussing to ascertain 



MISCELLANIES. 305 

truth, but also of enforcing acknowledged and familiar 
truth. — Baxter — Law. 

44. Intellectual pursuits aided hy the affections. — 
The successes of intellectual effort are never so great 
as when aided by the affections that animate social 
converse. 

45. All reasoning is retrospect ; it consists in the 
application of facts and principles previously known. 
This will show the very great importance of knowl- 
edge, especially that kind which is called experience. 

46. Figure of an equahle temper. — The equanimity 
which a few persons preserve through the diversities 
of prosperous and adverse life, reminds me of certain 
aquatic plants which spread their tops on the surface 
of the water, and with wonderful elasticity keep the 
surface still, if the water swells or if it falls. 

47. Adversity ! thou thistle of life, thou too art 
crowned ; first with a flower, then with down. 

48. A man of genius may sometimes suffer a mis- 
erable sterility ; but at other times he will feel him- 
self the magician of thought. Luminous ideas will 
dart from the intellectual firmament, just as if the 
stars were falling around him ; sometimes he must 
think by mental moonlight, but sometimes his ideas 
reflect the solar splendors. 

49. Casual thoughts are sometimes of great value. 
— One of these may prove the key to open for us a 
yet unknown apartment in the palace of truth, or a 
yet unexplored tract in the paradise of sentiment that 
environs it. 

50. Self-complaisant ignorance in judging distin- 
guished characters. — I heard lately an educated lady 
say she did not admire Shakspere at all. I admired 
her. It has often struck me as curious to observe the 
entire, unhesitating self-complacency with which 
characters assume to admire and detest, in opposition 
to the concuiTent opinions of all the most enlighten- 
ed and thinking minds With all this self-satis- 

26* 



306 Foster's thoughts. 

fied feeling, the most ignorant, or the most illiberal, 
hearers of sermons pronounce on the talents, &c., of 
the preachers. 

51. Fragment of a letter, never sent, to a friend. — 
In a lonely large apartment I write by a glimmer- 
ing taper, too feeble to dispel the spectres which im- 
agination descries, flitting or hovering in the twilight 
of the remote corners. The wind howls without, 
and at intervals I hear a distant bell, tolling amid 
antiquity and graves. The place and the hour might 
suit well for an appointed interview with a ghost, com- 
ing to reveal, though obscurely, " the secrets of the 
world unknown." I almost fancy I perceive his ap- 
proach ; a certain trembling consciousness seems to 
breathe through the air; an indistinct sullen sound, 
like the tread of unseen footsteps, passes along the 
ground, and seems to come toward me; I fearfully 

look up — and behold ! ! Thus abruptly last night 

I stopped, not without reason surely. 

52. Most interesting idea, that of renovated being. 
— I am not the person I was, the past is nothing to 
me ; the past I is not the present /; I have transited 
into another person ; I am my own phcenix. 

53. Pleasure of recognition. — The feeling which 
accompanies the recognition of an object that is not 
in itself interesting, but where the interest is in the 
circumstance of recognition. I have a feeling of this 
kind in seeins: what I believe to be the same butter- 
fly again at a considerable distance from where I saw 
it before. 

54. Misapprehension of friends. — One limitation 
to the noble indifference to what people think and 
say of us. Every generous mind will regret those 
misapprehensions of its conduct, which occasion mor- 
tification to the person who misapprehends — as that 
a person you respect should, through some mistake, 
believe that you have ridiculed or injured him. 

55. On the question, of the equality of men and 



MISCELLANIES. 307 

women. — A lady, in answer to my very serious rea- 
soning to prove tliat, if naturally equal, nothing can 
bring the woman to an actual equality, but the same 
course of vigorous mental exertion which profession- 
al men are obliged to go through, said, "Well, we 
shall be content to occupy a lower ground of intel- 
lectual character and attainment." 1 replied, "You 
may then be consoled ; we from that more elevated 
region shall sometimes, in the intervals of our grand 
interests and adventures, look down complacently 
and convei'se with you, till the emphasis of some 
momentous subject return, and call us to transact with 
our equals. It w41i be ours to inhabit the paradise 
on the high summit of that mount which you will 
never climb; we shall eat habitually the fruit of the 
trees of knowledge, but we will kindly sometimes 
throw you a few apples down the declivity." 

5Q>. Amusing idea, of playing a concert of people, 
that is, drawing forth the various passions, prejudices, 
&c., of a small company of persons, and mixing them, 
soothing them, exciting them, and, in short, entirely 
playing all their characters at the will, and by the 
unnoticed influence of the player. 

57. Ohservation during a ivalk of a few miles alone. 
— This glaring, steady sunshine gives an indistinct 
sameness to all objects, very like a frequent state of 
my mind, distended, in a fixed, general, vacant stare, 
incapable of individualizing. Hughes described it 
very correctly once, after hearing me perform a men- 
tal exercise while my mind was in this state : " All 
luminous, but no light." It is possible to go on in 
this case, with a train of diction which may. sound 
well enough, and even look fine, while it conveys no 
definite conceptions. 

58. Revelation explained by science. — Effect of the 
application of astronomical science, or rather of the 
immense ideas derived from astronomy, to modify 



308 Foster's thoughts. 

theological notions from the state in which divines 
exhibit them. 

59. Afi active mind, like an ^olian harp, arrests 
even the vagrant winds, and makes them music. 

60. Test of originality . — Have I so much original- 
ity as I suppose myself to have % The question rises 
from the reflection that very few original plans of ac- 
tion or enterprise ever occurred to my thoughts. 

61. Standard characters. — A human being like 
Edwin (the minstrel) would be the proper touchstone 
to bring into the routine of fashionable life, talk, 
amusements, &c. : what his feeling would nauseate 
is nauseous. 

62. Disparity hetwcen means and ends. — No scheme 
so mortifying as that which employs large means to 
accomplish little ends. Let your system be magni- 
tude of end with the utmost economy of means. 

63. To the Deity. — Give me all that is necessary 
to make me, in the greatest practicable degree, hap- 
py and useful. I feel myself so remote from thee, 
thou grand centre, and so torpid ! It is as if those 
qualities were extinct in my soul which could make 
it susceptible of thy divine attraction. But oh! thine 
energy can reach me even here. Attract me, thou 
great Being, within the sphere of thy glorious light; 
attract me within the view of thy throne ; attract me 
into the full emanation of thy mercies ; attract me 
within the sphere of thy sacred Spirit's most potent 
influences. I thank thee for the promise and the 
prospect of an endless life ; I hope to enjoy it amid 
the " eternal splendors" of thy presence, O Jehovah! 
I thank thee for this introductory stage, so remark- 
ably separated by that thick-shaded frontier of death, 
which I see yonder, from the amplitude of the future 
world. 

64. Interesting reminiscences. — It would be inter- 
esting to look back on all the past of one's life, to 
see how many, and count how many, vivid little points 



MISCELLANIES. .?09 

of recollection still twinkle through its shade. My 
mind just now cauoht sight of one of these stars of 
retrospect, at the distance of sixteen or seventeen 
years. It was my once (in a summer evening, the 
sun not set) lying on ray back on the grass, and hold- 
ing a small earthern vessel, out of which I had just 
sipped my evening milk, between my face and the 
sky, in such a way that a few of the soft rays glanced 
on my eyes, and seemed to form a little living circle 
of lustre, round an eyelet-hole, through which 1 fan- 
cied visions of entrancing beauty. 

65. Deterioration of jpolitical institutions. — All po- 
litical institutions will probably, from whatever cause, 
tend to become worse by time. Jf a system were 
now formed, that should meet all the philosopher's 
and the philanthropist's wishes, it would still have 
the same tendency ; only I do hope that hencefor- 
ward to the end of time, men's mind will be intense- 
ly awake to the nature and operation of their insti- 
tutions ; so that after a new era shall commence, gov- 
ernments shall not slide into depravity without being 
keenly watched, nor be watched without the sense 
and spirit to arrest their deterioration. 

66. Mutual recognition of inferior animals. — 1 ob- 
serve that all animals recognise each other in the face, 
as instinctively conscious that there the being is pe- 
culiarly present. What a mysterious sentiment there 
is in one's recognition of a conscious being in the eye 
that looks at one, and emphatically if it have some 
peculiar significance with respect to one's self A 
very striking feeling is caused by the opening on one 
of the eyes of any considerable animal, if it instantly 
have the expression of meaning. While the eye is 
shut the being seems not so completely xcith us, as 
when it looks through the opened organ. It is like 
holding in our hand a letter which we believe to con- 
tain most interesting meanings, but the seal secludes 
them from us. 



310 poster's thoughts. 

67. The lost teachings of our Lord.— It seems a 
thino- to be regretted that so much of our Lord's con- 
ver nation, consisting of momentous and infallible truth, 
should have been irretrievably lost. How much 
larger, and, if one may say so, how much more valu- 
able, the New Testament would have been, if all the 
instructions he uttered had been recorded. By what 
principle of preference were the conversations which 
the evangelists record, preserved, rather than the oth- 
ers which are lost? That he did many things that 
are not recorded is distinctly said by John, last chap- 
ter, last verse. 

68. Disagreeable associations. — A very respectable 
widow, who lost her husband ten or twelve years 
since, told me that even now the last image of her 
husband as she saw him ill, delirious and near death, 
generally first presents itself when she recollects him. 
1 always think I would not choose to see a dear friend 
dead, because probably the last image would be the 
most prompt remembrance, and T should be sorry to 
have the dead image presented to me rather than the 
living. 

69. The rational soid ofhrutes. — Zealously asserted 
the rational soul and future existence of brutes. 
Their souls made of the worse end of the celestial 
manufacture of mind, which was not quite fine enough 
to make into men. Various strong facts cited to prove 
that they, at least some of them, possess what we 
strictly mean by mind, reason, &c, 

70. Mode of addressing the Deity. — Struck lately 
at observing in myself with how little change of feel- 
ing I passed from an address to the Deity, to an apos- 
trophe to an absent friend. It was indeed a very dear 
friend. 

71. Due restraint in co7npany. — The presence of a 
third person gives a more balanced feeling with re- 
spect to an individual that interests one too much. 

72. Fig2irc of the darkness of reason. — Polished 



MISCELLANIES. 311 

steel will not shine in the dark ; no more can reason, 
however refined, shine efficaciously, but as it reflects 
the light of divine truth — shed from heaven. 

73. Value of observation af trifling events. — I re- 
member buying some trifle of, I think, a fruit-woman, 
in Ireland, who held me back the piece of money, 
and requested me, as it was the first money she had 
taken that day, to " spit on it for luck." I here re- 
gret having made no memoranda of the vast number 
of curious anecdotes, incidents, and odd glimpses of 
human nature, which one has met with in the course 
of years, and forgotten. 

74. An intrusive companion. — If a stranger on the 
road is anxious to have you for a companion, it is 
commonly a proof that his company is not worth hav- 

75. TJnperceived origin of images of thought. — 
Many images are called up in the mind by moral 
analogies which were not recognised before, that is, 
were not noticed with a distinct thought. 

76. Transmission of ignorant habits. — Conjecture 
after observing the habits and conversation of some 
rustics, that, superstition excepted, these are identi- 
cally the same as the habits, and commonplaces, and 
diction, of one or two centuries past. One thinks 
they could not have been at that time more ignorant, 
rude, and destitute of abstraction, than now, and cer- 
tainly the same causes that prevent acquisition will 
likewise prevent alteration. The degree remaining 
nearly the same, the manner can not become much 
different. 

77. Deception of the senses. — What endless decep- 
tions of the senses may happen ! This morning I 
mistook one object for a totally different one. in pas- 
sing it many times within a few feet, till I happened 
to examine it, when in a moment the deception was 
destroyed. What a number of reports and recorded 
facts may be of this kind ! 



312 Foster's thoughts. 

78. Excitation of mind. — I do not long for this 
powerful excitation as an instrument of vain-glory. 
It is not a thing which, ambition out of the way, 
would give me no disturbance. No ; it is essential 
to my enjoyment. It is the native impulse of my 
soul, and it must be gratified, or I shall be either ex- 
tremely degraded or extremely unhappy; for I am 
unhappy in as far as I do not feel myself advancing 
toward true greatness. I feel myself like a large and 
powerful engine which has not sufficient water or 
fire to put it completely in motion. 

79. TJioughtless destruction of life. — I have seen a 
man, a religious man, press his foot down repeatedly 
on a small ant-hill, while a great number of the poor 
animals have been busy on it. I never did such a 
thing, never. O Providence ! how many poor in- 
sects of thine are exposed to be trodden to death in 
each path : are not all beings within thy care ? 

80. Little interest of human heings in each other. 
— At an association lately, observed how little human 
beings as individuals interest one another, beyond the 
very narrow limits of relationship, love, or uncom- 
monly devoted friendship. There were several per- 
sons with whom I had been acquainted complacently, 
but without any particular attachment, several years 
before, and had not seen them for a considerable in- 
terval. We met, shook hands—" How do you do ?' 
— ** I am glad to see you" — " What have you been 
doing all this v/hile ]" — with a mutual slight smile of 
complaisance, or of transient kindness, and then in a 
minute or two we had passed each other, to perform 
the same ceremony in some other part of the room, 
without any further recollection or care respecting 
each other. And yet these insipid assemblages of 
people from a hundred miles' distance are said to be, 
in a great measure, for the sake of affection, friend- 
ship, &c. 

So in London lately, my acquaintance mig-ht hap- 



MISCELLANIES. 313 

pen, or might not happen, to make a slight inquiiy 
about some subject deeply interesting to myself; and 
if they had happened, by the time that 1 had con- 
structed the first sentence of reply, the question was 
forofotten and somethino: else adverted to. So does 
oneself in the same case ; so every one does ; w^e 
are interested only about self, or about those who 
form a part of our self-interest. Beyond all other 
extravagances of folly is that of expecting or wishing 
to live in a great number of hearts. How very rea- 
sonably prohable is the prevalence of Godwin's uni- 
versal philanthropy ! 

8 1 . Imperfection of the Jewish dispensation. — Why 
was the Jewish dispensation so strange, so exterior, 
so inadequate 1 Why? Would that the end of the 
world were come, to explain the proceedings of Prov- 
idence during its continuance ! But I perceive mul- 
titudes around me, who know nothing of these doubts 
and wonderings. 

82. ^ef -deception. — Perhaps you may think that 
vanity betrays me into a flattering estimate of my ca- 
jDacity ; and perhaps it does ; but after having specu- 
lated on myself so long, I doubt whether speculation 
will now be able to detect the fallacy. It must be 
left to experiment. 

83. Uncertainty of the future. — Here I am now, in 
health, in a field near C , musing on plans for fu- 
turity. What a question it is, " How — when — where 
—shall I die r' 

84. Fragment of a letter, never sent. — My dear sir, 
I consider each of us as having nearly described a 
semicircle of life since I saw you last, aUd it is with 
great pleasure I anticipate the completing of the cir- 
cle in meetintr you ao^ain in little more than a week. 
It would be amusing for each to exhibit memoirs or 
the incidents and of the course. I was lately consid- 
ering what would be the effect of a law obliging each 
person to present, at appointed periods, a history of 

27 



314 Foster's thoughts. 

his life during the interval, to a kind of morality court, 
authorized to investigate, censure, and reward. I v^^as 
considering how, in that case, I should dispose of, 
and where I should conceal, a considerable quantity 
of the materials which ought to be exltibited in my 
history, or, if I could not conceal them, in what spe- 
cious language it v/ould be possible to describe them, 
so as to obtain the tolerance of this high and venera- 
ble court. I concluded that the best expedient would 
be, to get TTiy self appointed one of tJie jicclgcs. 

What a delightful thing it would be, to be able 
honestly at all times to approve oneself entirely ! I 
have sometimes passed through a series of deep and 
wondering reflection, beginning from myself, and ex- 
tending over and around that vast mass of human 
existence I have been observing ; when at last the 
thought, that an invisible and omniscient Power is 
all the while taking these things that I look at, or 
hear, or do, into his estimate, expanded as it were in 
the heavens, an ample counterpart to this world of 
active character below" ; when this thought has light- 
ened from the sky, it has struck as a thought of 
alarm ; it has even sometimes appeared with the as- 
pect of a neiv thought, announcing a truth not known 
or not felt before. I have finished the reflections by 
determining that as there really is an estimate above, 
coextending with the advance of life below, a wise 
man will, to the end of time, associate the thought 
of that estimate with every act of that life. I hope 
henceforth to live incessantly under the influence of 
this thought ; and then I should neither care to be 
a judge in the court I have supposed, nor be at all 
afraid to present myself at its bar. 



CHEAP GASH BOOK STORE, 

EDWARD H. FLETCHER, 

STo. 141 Nassau street, 

NEW YORK. 

Has constantly on hand, at wholesale and retail, a general 
assortment of Theological, Classical, Miscellaneous, School 
and Blank Books and Stationery. 

A complete Depository of Sabbath School Books. 

Booksellers, Traders, Teachers, Schools, Academies and 
Individuals supplied, wholesale and retail, on the most lib- 
eral terms. 

Religious books of every variety which are to be found 
in the market, may be obtained here at the tery lowest 
prices. 



SECOND-HAND BOOKS. 

Valuable Standard Theological and other Books from 
private Ubraries will be sold at a fraction of the price of 
new. 

MARRIAGE CERTIFICATES. 

A new and beautiful article, with a silver border, sam- 
ples of which will be sent gratis to post-pnid applications. 
Published by 

EDWARD H. FLETCHER, 

No. 141 Nassau street. 



The copartnership heretofore existing between the Sub- 
scribers, under the firm of LEWIS COLBY & COM- 
PANY, is this day dissolved by mutual consent. All ac- 
counts will be settled by Lewis Colby, who is authorized 
to use the name of the firm in liquidation. 

LEWIS COLBY. 
EDWARD H. FLETCHER. 

New YorA-, September 5th, 1848. 



CIRCULAR. 

The subscriber respectfully announces to his friends and 
the public that he has opened a store at 141 Nassau street, 
where he will continue the same line of the BOOKSELL- 
ING and PUBLISHING business which has been pur- 
sued by the late firm. 

Having been regularly bred to the business, added to 
which is his experience in the late concern from its com- 
mencement, he feels confident that he can offer to his patrons 
advantageous terms. 

The primary object of this establishment will be the pub- 
lication and sale of Religious Books. 

A large assortment of Sabbath School Books will be 
kept, and to this department much attention will be paid. 
If Sabbath Schools, wishing to replenish their Ubraries, or 
to purchase new ones, will forward their funds, and a list 
of such books as they already have, their orders will re- 
ceive prompt attention, and the selection will be carefully 
made. 

Also will be kept. School and Blank Books, and Sta- 
tionery of every variety — Sermon Paper, Marriage Certifi- 
cates, &c. 

Foreign Books imported, for a small commission. 

g^" A liberal discount will be made to Booksellers, 
Ministers, and Teachers. 

EDWARD H. FLETCHER. 

New York, September 23d, 1848. 



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